• 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.”

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

– Robert Louis Stevenson

Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail. There’s only make.”

– Corita Kent

Never cut what you can untie.”

– Joseph Joubert

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

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try going to sleep with a mosquito in your room.”

– A wisdomism

It is possible to fail in many ways…while to succeed is possible only in one way.”

– Aristotle

The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity.”

– Marcel Proust

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

– Leonard Cohen

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

– Carl Rogers

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

– Magical

Entrepreneurs are willing to roll the dice with their money or reputation on the line in support of an idea or enterprise.”

– Victor Kiam

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

– Anita Roddick

If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more.
 If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.”

– Oprah Winfrey

Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better.”

– Edgar W. Howe

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

– Victor Kiam

Destiny is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”

– William Jennings Bryan

Whosoever knows how to fight well is not angry. Whosoever knows how to conquer enemies does not fight them.”

– Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

If you want to be busy, keep trying to be perfect. If you want to be happy, focus on making a difference.”

– Lisa Earle McLeod

A man without a smiling face
 should not open a shop.”

– Chinese Proverb

Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth. Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.”

– Noela Evans

Do not say, ‘why were the former days better than these,’ for it is not from wisdom that you ask this.”

– Ecclesiastes, 7:10

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.”

– Thomas Carlyle

What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?”

– Jim Butcher, White Night

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.”

– Jalaluddin Rumi

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!”

– Andrew Carnegie

If you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come.”

– Oprah Winfrey

Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.”

– Christopher Morley

Why am I whispering when I have something to say?”

– Eve Ensler

To find what you seek in the road of life, leave no stone unturned.”

– Edward Bulwer Lytton

But all the while I was alone, the past was close behind, I seen a lot of women, but she never escaped my mind, and I just grew, tangled up in blue.”

– Bob Dylan

Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.”

– Arthur Rubinstein

You may ask me for anything you like except time.”

– Napoleon

Do one thing every day that scares you.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

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

– Jesse Jackson

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

– Winston Churchill

The follow-your-gut mentality of the entrepreneur has the potential to take you anywhere you want to go or run you right out of business.”

– Bill Rancic, "The Apprentice"

Let us seize the day and the opportunity and strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities.”

– W.E.B. Du Bois

Friendship is the only cement that will hold the world together.”

– Woodrow Wilson

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

– William Butler Yeats

Always look at what you have left. Never look at what you have lost.”

– Robert H. Schuller

Don’t follow, lead. Don’t copy, create. Don’t start, finish. Don’t sit still, move. Don’t fit in, stand out. Don’t sit quietly, speak up. (Not all the time, sure, but more often.)”

– Seth Godin

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

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.”

– Albert Schweitzer

When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.”

– Audre Lorde

A lot of people have ideas, but few decide to do something about them now. Not next week. But today.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Atari

You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it.”

– Goldie Hawn

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

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.”

– Lao Tzu