In the last few weeks I had to cancel two events, messed up a contract so that we lost money on an event and had to restructure an event to cater to my feelings of complete overwhelmedness. I have had to tell women I deeply believe in “no” or “wait” or “we can only do this, not that”, and I hate every time I can’t give my full self and our full resources to a woman.

Last week, I withdrew from a course.

This was a decision most people find easy and obtaining little importance. But for me, oh for me, this decision was in the simplest term – hard. Deciding to withdraw from this course was like creating a giant neon sign that said, “Look what Morgan cannot do!” for all my friends, classmates, and family to see.

In the suburbs, it’s easy to become numb to the ways we pursue our own self-satisfaction—whether it’s through our physical house or it’s packaged as abstract nouns. All these abstract nouns (like success, meaning, purpose, and self-esteem) are contingent on the kingdom of self.

It was April of 2010. My fiancé and I were roughly two months away from our wedding day, and we were spending the weekend looking at places to stay.

When I joined the board here at Rise, Holly asked me to give her a bio that she could share with the other board members. I cringed as soon as I read her email because I really hate writing bios. There's such a fine line between being accurate and aspirational.

Confession time: Sometimes I dread opening Facebook or Twitter, knowing someone new will be asking for money and I won’t know how to respond. I’ll admit, I tend to tune them out, even when I know I could, technically, help. It’s just too much to take in.