• Columnists

Cari Shane Parven, Writer

COLUMN = PARENTING

Based in the Washington, DC, area, Cari Shane Parven, a former television and radio reporter, writes for The Washington Post, Cooking Light, The Washington Examiner, Fromer’s Budget Travel, MYBusiness Magazine, Swimmer, Maryland-Life, Home & Design and more. She is also a contributing essayist in the new anthology, “Knowing Pains: Women on Love, Sex, and Work in Our 40s.”

Her dream as a child was to be like Jane Goodall sitting in the forest among the chimps, or Margaret Mead observing the natives in Samoa. As a mother of three and wife to one, she can do neither, so instead she blends into the culture around her and writes about what she sees. Her observations can be found in her blogs, “Inside the Beltway and Under the Radar” and “Keepin’ It Real,” where she writes about mental health issues for Gannet’s WUSA-TV. Parven is a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post and the “Friendship Examiner” for examiner.com.

Before her return to print journalism five years ago, Parven was in front of the camera working as a television reporter and weekend anchor at the NBC affiliate in Hartford, Connecticut. Prior to that, she was a features reporter for the ABC affiliate in the Roanoke/Lynchburg, Virginia, market, a news writer for Philadelphia’s Fox station, and a weekend anchor at the NBC affiliate in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Parven began her broadcast career in radio in Poughkeepsie, New York, and worked for many years as a radio anchor and reporter in Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut. Her print career began at The Poughkeepsie Journal in New York.

In the 90s, Parven ran a successful media-tour company representing a variety of well-known national clients, including Hunts, General Foods, Accutane, and TJ Maxx. Parven not only created the media campaigns for her clients, placing their products on national and local news programs, but also acted as spokesperson for several of her national media campaigns.

A graduate of Vassar College and a Manhattan native, Parven currently lives in Potomac, Maryland. She is writing her first novel, “A Winter’s Spring.”

They who give have all things. They who withhold have nothing.”

– Hindu Proverb

Success is about finding a livelihood that brings joy, self-sufficiency, and a sense of contributing.”

– Anita Roddick

‎No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of another.”

– Charles Dickens

Speaking more than one language is no longer just an asset in today’s job market; it is a requirement.”

– Tom Adams, CEO, Rosetta Stone

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”

– Magical

That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.”

– Henry David Thoreau

How do you stay resilient? It’s about momentum. Like riding a bicycle. If you stop you fall over. So I keep pedaling.”

– Diane Lane

I don’t do very well without fear. There needs to be a part of me saying, ‘That’s going to fail,’ so I can prove myself wrong.”

– Harry Potter's Daniel Radcliffe

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.”

– Steve Jobs, Apple, Inc.

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. 
Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.”

– Mary Jean Irion

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had.”

– Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

When I was younger I thought success was being a star, driving nice cars, having groupies. But today I think the most important thing is to live your life with integrity.

– Ellen DeGeneres

Women once had the goal of being Superwoman; I think most of us now simply strive to have a super day.”

– Author, Activist Lee Woodruff

You take your life in your own hands, and what happens?
 A terrible thing: no one to blame.”

– Erica Jong

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

You must learn to be still in the midst of activity 
and to be vibrantly alive in repose.”

– Indira Ghandi

An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.“


– Roy Ash, co-founder of Litton Industries

The best reason to start an organization is to create a product or service to make the world a better place.”

– Guy Kawasaki

There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

– Leonard Cohen

‎That which grows fast withers as rapidly; that which grows slowly endures.”

– J.G. Holland, novelist

Never cut what you can untie.”

– Joseph Joubert

Entrepreneurs willingly assume responsibility for the success or failure of a venture and are answerable for all its facets.”

– Victor Kiam

Don’t wait for someone else to lead you to your right life; that privilege—and responsibility—is yours alone.”

– Martha Beck

If you were independently wealthy and never had to work a day in your life, would you still choose to spend your time attempting to become a successful entrepreneur?”

– Steven Schussler

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.”

– Bob Dylan

The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it.”

– Voltaire

Who cares if my glass is half empty or half full; I still have something to drink.”

– Optimism rules

Whatever you do may seem insignificant, but it is most important that you do it.”

– Gandi

Your own words are the bricks and mortar
of the dreams you want to realize.
 The words you choose and their use establish the life you experience.”

– Sonia Croquette

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it”

– Andrew Carnegie

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

– Thomas Edison

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go, life is a barren field frozen with snow.”

– Langston Hughes

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

– Christopher Robin to Pooh

We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”

– Winston Churchill

If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.”

– Jesse Jackson

Are you willing to help other people succeed even when it’s not a requirement of your job to be of assistance?”

– Steven Schussler

Ripeness is all.”

– William Shakespeare

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

– Groucho Marx

Letting go of expectations is a ticket to peace. It allows us to ride over every crisis—small or large—like a beach ball on water.”

– Martha Beck

Do you have the desire to create something new; the strength of conviction to believe your creation will be successful, and the reservoir of energy necessary to thrust it into the marketplace?”

– Steven Schussler

The music is all around us. All you have to do is listen.”

– August Rush

Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.”

– Francesca Reigle

Anything not worth doing well is not worth doing.”

– Warren Buffett

Death is to lose the earth you know, for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth.”

– Thomas Wolfe

My job is my hobby. I come to work to play.”

– Uli Becker, president, Reebok International

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

– Robert Frost

We never know how high we are
 till we are called to rise;
 And then, if we are true to plan,
 Our statures touch the skies.”

– Emily Dickinson

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.”

– Helen Keller