Photo: ©Kaitlin Thurman Barry

A home cooked meal, late nights filled with meaningful conversations, laughter and lots of impromptu dancing.

BY KAITLIN THURMAN BARRY

Editor’s Note Join us this coming Monday, September 19th, when The Magazine of Yoga begins live coverage of the UN Foundation/Mashable.com Social Good Summit, and add your voice to the conversation on the world’s vital issues.

Of particular excitement these days at the UN Foundation is preparing for the Social Good Summit. For months, we’ve been running around like crazy people putting together an amazing event that will run from September 19th to September 22nd during UN Week in NYC. In partnership with the 92nd Street Y and Mashable, the Summit brings together bloggers, traditional journalists, world leaders, technology innovators, Heads of State, global activists and more around one goal: how new media is helping solve our world’s greatest problems.

We are working with speakers like Randi Zuckerberg, Christy Turlington (avid yogi!), Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Ted Turner and many more to put together inspirational talks that showcase how the most pressing global issues (think child marriage, maternal health, education, etc.) are be tackled in new ways.

I’ve always known that social media was this incredibly powerful tool (think beyond the evil, not-so-attractive pictures of oneself that get posted haphazardly for the world to see on Facebook). But until the Social Good Summit, I didn’t realize that so many people around the world believe in coming together to use new media for social good. Changing people’s lives is way beyond the days when someone put $0.50 in a jar at the grocery store. In 2011, anyone, anywhere, can have a role to play in making the world a better place.

All you have to do is log on.

Website Social Good Summit

Website UN Foundation

Related Post LiveBlogging Social Good Summit Day One

The Magazine of Yoga 3×5 Interview

What?

What is the task you like to do best in your work?
I love my team members at the UN Foundation. They are literally the best people that I have ever worked with. Young, dynamic, fashionable, caring, funny. Anything that includes them – even if we are stuck in a windowless room all day brainstorming – makes me happy. They bring out the best in me.

What housework or domestic detail is most satisfying to do?
I could pretty much spend all day figuring out how to design my home. I’m a homebody by nature so I love creating a space that is warm and welcoming. Whether it’s fresh flowers or oversized pillows, anything that is minimal and simple but comforting and calm speaks to me. Establishing this space for my family and friends is insanely satisfying. While I love finding the right materials and components, they are ultimately meaningless as just objects but worth gold in the feeling they create.

What in light of your experience in life, should we not waste time on or worry about?
Oh wow, there are probably a million good answers to this question. But right now I am staring at a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh that says,

People sacrifice the present for the future. But life is available only in the present.

I spent a lot of my twenties being trapped in my head and being anxious about “what’s next?” But the truth is that none of that worry has actually shaped where I am today.

Meditation has taught me that we are not our minds. The mind is a crazy thing whose instinct can often be to worry.

My advice: people should waste a lot of time following their heart.

How?

How do you celebrate?
With my husband, a Joni Mitchell album, and a bottle of wine. And when I’m feeling “rowdier,” with family and friends over a home cooked meal and late nights filled with meaningful conversations, laughter and lots of impromptu dancing. Especially when my sister is involved.

How do you learn?
By asking questions. I’ve probably been guilty of inadvertently playing 20 questions before with everyone from a cab driver in New York City to my boss. I don’t remember if I was like that as a student, but as I get older, I have this urge to know more by asking more.

How do you prepare to do something?
Like above, I ask a lot of questions. Then I figure out how to get the job done really well while on the path of least of resistance. It doesn’t always happen that I go down the stress-free road but starting out that way, even if just mentally, tends to be my best method of maintaining control and sanity. I am not one of those people who functions better while stressed. When I’m stressed, I just function. Whether or not it’s well is another question.

Do?

Do you have a nemesis?
Mean people. I just don’t get them.

Do you have a vocation?
Is working with people in a creative environment and trying to be happy even when it’s really difficult a vocation? It’s what I’ve been drawn to my whole life.

Do you have a plan?
Yes. I am going to live on a vineyard that is on the ocean but has the mountains behind it. Where my family and closest friends live within a half hour. I’ll have two dogs, three horses, lots of kids, a darkroom, and a garden. I’ll drop my husband off for work in the morning and then head into the local town where I’ll own a boutique store. People will stroll in and out all day and I’ll always give away free – but delicious! – hot coffee and tea. I’ll teach an art class at night and become a master at baking pies. And, I’ll never be stressed or rushed ever. It’s possible, right?

Faves

Favorite magazine?
It was Domino magazine. I’ve been in therapy ever since it shut down in 2009.

Favorite work beverage?
Green tea.

Favorite relax thing?
Yoga, hands down. Nothing makes me happier than seeing my yoga friends in class and getting back to my mat. I am always the best version of myself after a yoga class.

Fives

5 things about your workspace that make it good
1. Great people.
2. Inspiring leadership.
3. A phenomenal administrative team.
4. A mission that matters to the world.
5. My bus stop less than a block away.

5 people you want to collaborate with
1. My sister. We have always wanted to start a business together.
2. My mom. Because she is also in the starting a business together deal.
3. Bob Baffert. It’s not really him per se since I don’t know anything about him as a person. But I want to work with someone who can teach me how to train race horses.
4. Patty Griffin. I envision that she’ll rub her talent off on me and then we’ll go on tour together.
5. My best friend from college, Rachel. We decided over a decade ago that we were going to perfect sitting on a front porch together. It’s time to dig back up that dream.

5 songs from your current playlist
1. Patty Griffin, Moon Song.
2. Fleetwood Mac, Silver Springs.
3. Van Morrison, Tupelo Honey.
4. Gillian Welch, Harvest Moon.
5. Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago.

© 2011, The Magazine of Yoga, LLC.