• 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.”

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

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do.
 Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.”

– Ella Fitzgerald

Remember that it’s okay to ask for help when you’re stumped, because sometimes you really can’t be expected to handle everything alone.”

– Martha Beck

The goal of Life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with nature.”

– Joseph Cambell

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

– Helen Keller

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

– Joseph Campbell

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”

– Leon Joseph Suenens

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

– Mary Oliver

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

You only live once. But if you do it right, once is enough.”

– Mae West

Anything not worth doing well is not worth doing.”

– Warren Buffett

A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.”

– Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Ripeness is all.”

– William Shakespeare

The gem cannot be polished without friction; nor man perfected without trials.”

– Chinese proverb

It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.”

– J. Kristnhamurti, The First and Last Freedom

He who knows he has enough is rich.”

– Tao Te Ching

I’ve come to confirm that one’s title, even that of president, says little about how well one’s life has been led. No matter how much you’ve done, or how successful you’ve been, there’s always more to do, to learn, and to achieve.”

– Barack Obama

Part of your destiny is to live in the zone of maximum satisfaction.”

– Martha Beck

If it really was a no-brainer to make it on your own in business there’d be millions of no-brained, harebrained individuals quitting their day jobs.”

– Bill Rancic, "The Apprentice"

The mind is everything. What you think, you become.”

– Buddha

Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask, and that’s what separates the people who do things from the people who just dream about them.”

– Steve Jobs

You must have chaos within you, to create a dancing star.”

– Frederic Nietzsche

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

– John Quincy Adams

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

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

– A wisdomism

The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.”

– Bruce Lee

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

– Oprah Winfrey

The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. The greatest failure is to not try.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”

– JFK

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

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Chuck E. Cheese's

Change is a math formula. Change happens when the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change.”

– Alan Webber, author, "Rules of Thumb"

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

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

– Thomas Edison

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

– Carl Rogers

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

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

– Victor Kiam

There is little success where there is little laughter.”

– Andrew Carnegie

Look at everything as though you were
seeing it either for the first or last time.
Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.”

– Betty Smith

Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences.”

– J.K. Rowling

He who wants to tear down a house must be prepared to rebuild it.”

– African Proverb

Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.”

– Annie Dillard

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”

– Robert Frost

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

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

– Indira Ghandi

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

– Optimism rules

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

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

– Guy Kawasaki

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
 what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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