Walk Into the Future

Tag: Celebrate

  • Walking and celebrating daily!

    “The most important thing is to enjoy your life—to be happy.  It’s all that matters.”

    (Audrey Hepburn)

    What did you celebrate today?  What about yesterday?

    I don’t ask these questions as a mind-bending riddle but to get you to understand every day is work celebrating! 

    Why do you say that?  Great question, Mrs. Fouraker! 😊

    I know I spend a lot of time planning for the future with my training and travel schedules.  I decided to add a new category to my list of goals in 2026.  The Walk into the Future blog provides me with a platform to ensure I live life daily.  My new focus in 2026 is to wake up each morning with full intention to celebrate the day. 

    We don’t have to wait for a special occasion like a birthday or anniversary to celebrate.  Life is worth celebrating and this is my reminder to each of my readers to wake up and celebrate daily.

    I’ve started to share my daily celebrations with my friends and anyone who will stand still long enough for me to share my thoughts! 😊  This new approach started with me ringing in the new year with a new focus.  I normally bring in the new year very low key and stay close to home.  I decided to break my low-key pattern and went to dinner with my friend Lynn before the party crowds came out.  This was not a huge production, but it was a great way to end an outstanding 2025 for me.

    My next celebration was our first day back at school. We get a two-and-a-half-week break between the fall semester and the start of the spring semester.  This was a much-needed break for me, and I relaxed more than I normally do.  I booked a trip to the Dominican Republic in December 2024 but decided to simply relax over the break in 2025.  I practiced sleeping in and not planning my days out where I had to be anywhere at a specific time.  Yes, this is a new process for me. 😊

    I was excited to come back to school on January 5th to get back to making a difference in the lives of my tree branches and our students.  My first text of the day was to let everyone know that the day was worth celebrating and we should embrace it together.  I’m sure my folks thought this was going to be a one off, but I was back to celebrating the next day too.

    There was not a huge incident that made me decide to celebrate each day, but it was a simple mindset shift where I realized that framing the day as a celebration would allow me to continue to make a difference in the world.

    This simple concept has enabled me to keep a positive mindset daily throughout the month of January.  I wake up with a new focus on celebrating the day and make a point to ensure folks around me celebrate with me too.  I’ve had folks come into my office with a problem (real or perceived) and I simply engage them with the need to celebrate the day regardless of what may have happened.  We work in higher education and there are days of conflict.  I have discovered most of our conflicts are simple misunderstandings that can be corrected with a simple follow-up conversation.  No, I don’t celebrate conflict, but it can’t be completely avoided.  I do celebrate the lessons we learn from workplace conflict, so we don’t repeat bad habits to keep the organization moving forward. 

    So, what did I celebrate today?  Great question!

    My family and friends are healthy, my tree branches are doing great things in the world and I’m thinking about signing up for another full marathon in 2026!  There are a ton of other things to celebrate today, and I want to make sure I don’t lose sight of those things.  Creating new content for the Walk into the Future blog is something I look forward to daily.  Fun fact: celebrating daily is the new category in my list of goals.

    Let’s celebrate me continuing to come up with new content to share with YOU!

    Oh yeah, I’m celebrating every reader of the Walk into the Future blog!  Thanks for walking with me!

    What are you celebrating today?

    Irie!

    Calvin Williams

    “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that counts. It’s life in your years.”

    (Abraham Lincoln)

  • Daily flowers—send them now!

    Purple Rose

    (Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay)

    “Don’t wait for people to die to send them flowers”.

    (Reverend Simmons, New Bethel AME Church)

    It is amazing the things we retain from our childhood.  I attended weekly Sunday school and church services at New Bethel AME church while growing up in Jasper, FL.  I am sure Reverend Simmons said some other amazing things but the quote above always stuck with me.  Never understood it as a kid so maybe that is why it stuck with me all these years.

    Thought it was a weird saying until I fully understood his meaning.  It can be interpreted multiple ways, but he was reminding us to cherish/celebrate the people in our lives while we have them.  Waiting for a tragic incident is a bit late to let people know what you think about them.

    I decided to write this post 3 days after Kobe Bryant, his daughter and friends died in a helicopter crash in Los Angeles.  I am not much of an NBA fan but watched Kobe during his Hall of Fame NBA career and more intently after he retired.  He ventured into business, screen writing, venture capital investments and his sports academy as part of his life after basketball.  He became successful in these endeavors because he displayed a thirst for knowledge and sought out mentors to learn new things.  He continued to look for ways to get better and make a difference in the world.  Believe he was on the verge of expanding his portfolio in the entertainment world but never got a chance to complete this portion of his legacy.

    I will not dive much further into Kobe’s life, but his unexpected passing brought me back to what Reverend Simmons reminded us EVERY Sunday—Do not wait for people to die to send them flowers. 

    I use a lot of quotes in my daily Walk into the Future, but I am sure my tree branches have never heard me use this quote with them.  May seem weird to share so much with them but not this one aspect of my background.  Allow me to provide a bit of clarity and how I leverage the quote in all my interactions.

    I take my role as a tree seriously and believe I should model positive things for my tree branches.  I also want to continue to make a difference daily.  So, I provide theoretical flowers every day to my people!

    I make a point to text, call, email, LinkedIn, visit or carrier pigeon (LOL) someone daily to provide them their flowers.  May look like:

    • Happy Monday!
    • Happy Friday!
    • Go (insert name)!
    • How are you?
    • How are your students doing?
    • How’s the family?

    I could add more to the list but believe you get the message.  It may be small things but once I understood what Reverend Simmons was telling us I discovered a ton of ways to provide flowers daily.  Some of you may prefer real flowers but I cannot afford the daily costs so guess you will have to be happy with my texts, calls, emails, LinkedIn, visits and hopefully those dang pigeons arrive soon! 😊

    So, do me a favor, look around and identify who you need to send flowers to and get busy!  Thank you!

    “It’s the one thing you can control.  You are responsible for how people remember you—or don’t.  So, don’t take it lightly”.

    (Kobe Bryant)

    “Live for yourself and you live in vain; live for others and you will live again”.

    (Bob Marley)

     Happy Mother’s Day!!!