Poor Shannon

“What the hell is wrong with me?”

Her eyes stare back like laser beams; face stern in a way that makes you think you’re the reason for everything wrong. How did I get here? She used to trust you. Her warm smile and comforting demeanor was the reason you took the job in the first place. Her dark eyes almost hypnotic, as she explained she convinced you to be apart of her mission.

No, I can’t get down on myself, I am doing my best. Eleven hours a day! Eleven hours a day of work  I am required to be here and not a single drop of respect. I should be getting compensation and a half based on what I go through. Why did she hire me in the first place? Was it because she thought she could control me like a robot? Tell me to do exactly what she wanted? I’ve always been kind of a push over… Maybe she could see that in me.

Seconds feel like hours as that once warm smile has become more of a stern grimace. Her lips begin to move and a cannot think of a place that isn’t more stress ridden at the time.

I’d rather be in shackles in the town square for murdering a man. At least that way I would deserve what is coming.

“Can you fill me in on what happened with Maravious and Shannon?”, she inquires.

Here we go

“Well, Maravious had called Shannon a bitch. So we all sat down to discuss what proper office etiquette was,” I explained

“Did you report it?”

“No, after our discussion we all agreed that everything was ok.”

“Well, Shannon obviously doesn’t think it is ok,” she proclaimed sharply; her voice so strong with confidence it could stop a train like a brick wall. She could tell I was puzzled as she continued, “Your ignorance and oversight led to Shannon reporting this to HR.”

“Ok? As she should.”

“Well, HR is saying that you should have filed a report, and your lack of doing so is quite concerning. Did you know you were supposed to file a report?”

“Well, yeah…”

“YOU DID?”

“But I thought…”

“It doesn’t matter what you thought. Shannon is threatening to sue. Is that something that you can pay out of your pocket?”

“Well, no.”

“I didn’t think so.” The room falls silent as the stern glare has become a look meant for a rapist.

“Mark, I like you, but this is kind of the last string.”

“What did I do wrong? Shouldn’t you be talking to Maravious?”

That must have been the wrong thing to say. Her posture instantly changed. No longer did she look mad, but she had returned to her normal demeanor. With those warm dark eyes and a smooth calm voice she began, “Maravious has been with this company for 20 years. HR would have to go through too many hoops to let him go, and Shannon hired an outside lawyer. Their coming for us if we don’t do anything about it. I’m sorry”

Thoughts start rattling around my head.

What the hell did I do? I must be a terrible person. How am I going to go home and raise a family. No one is going to hire me, But I didn’t do anything wrong! Fuck this. I might as well be thrown in jail for doing nothing. Not like that doesn’t happen already. I hate myself.

Another fatality of corporate life. Denigrated for the sole purpose of having to put one’s head on a steak. No one will care in a couple days. No one will think about Mark’s life and what he has to go through.

Poor Shannon.

GEN-Y Identity Crisis

For GEN-Y, we find ourselves in an identity crisis. For us 20-somethings a few years ago we were still in high school; defined by our peers on who we were. Some of us were labeled as jocks, some of us were nerds, and some of us were loners. Whether class clowns or goody-two-shoes, we had an identity; an identity that was almost impossible to break out of until we graduated. In college we were supposed to have time to search for that identity, and discover who we were. However, once again we found ourselves defined as bros, sororstitutes, hipsters, or GDI’s. Each with an identity that was frowned upon by other groups. Even within groups there were subgroups, like the “hot sorority”, or the “party frat”. College was supposed to be a time of self discovery, with unlimited opportunities to discover who you really are, but stereotypes got in the way.

As we graduated college and found ourselves in the real world, a lot of us still were lacking an identity. Now, it may seem like we are a generation of identity procrastinators. We avoid becoming who we really are, to be what others want us to be. However, I do not think we are intentionally procrastinating. Most of us adapt to our surroundings in the best way we can. We don’t fully choose an identity, because we think there are dire consequences. Once an identity is chosen, you will make people mad, people will not like you, and usually there is no going back. If we put off choosing an identity, or all choose the same identity, then we will be able to not feel alone in this cruel world. Loneliness is feared way more than a lack of identity.

But how can the generation that is so open to differences be conforming? Why do we hide our personalities over just telling people who we really are? The struggle is 100% internal. Most people won’t judge you for who you are, but internally we think “what if they do”.

“What if they don’t like who I am?” is the dumbest question to internally ask yourself. If they don’t like who you really are, then why waste your time trying to be their friend? We need to stop hiding behind our own insecurities to become the powerful generation we say we are.

Let’s stop hiding. Let’s make being individualistic the cool thing to do, and empower those who think they need to conform by letting them know that who they are is good enough. For everyone who is still identity searching, continue to search. Self-awareness and self-confidence are two of the most internally empowering things you can achieve. It is a long journey figuring out who you really are, but it is a journey that is well worth it.

Let’s do away with the word “Creepy”

“Don’t talk to strangers”; advice that has been given to us since we were little kids. This information was pounded into our heads from a young age. The message was simple; other people are scary. Our parents had good intentions. By staying away from strangers we would be safe, and safety is always important.

This message stayed with us as we grew up. Don’t talk to strangers. Only talk to people who are “safe”. However, safety should no longer be a huge concern. Most of the time we can take care of ourselves. We do not need anyone to look after us anymore, because we can take care of ourselves.

Now I’m not implying that if a stranger walks up to us and starts a conversation that our instant response is, “Sorry, I’m not allowed to talk to strangers.” However, our response is not too different. We give them the cold shoulder until they leave, turn to our friends and say, “Wow, that was creepy.” A stranger coming up to you and generating conversation is considered creepy today. What is wrong with that?

Creepy is defined as, “unnerving through fear”. When we use creepy (or “creeper”) to describe someone, we are saying that that person actually scares us. I can honestly say that I have heard that term used among GEN-Y quite frequently. Apparently we all fear each other.

And we do. I walk around my college campus and it is quite frustrating to see how we interact with strangers. When walking around by myself, I sometimes find myself playing “the eye contact” game. The game is simple, make eye contact with the individuals who walk by you. If the other person breaks eye contact first, you win! The results are quite hilarious and sad at the same time. This is because when I get near someone, they don’t look at me at all. They look away and do everything they can to avoid eye contact.

Creepiness makes us feel alone. It is what makes us feel lost when surrounded by people. It is what makes us fear going out into public by ourselves. We not only fear that others are “creepy”, but we fear that others will view us as being “creepy”.

The fact is very few people are actually creepy. On a college campus for example, a majority of people we call creepy, are not creepy at all. They are actually just different. They may not be exactly the same as the people we are familiar with talking to, but they shouldn’t have to be. They shouldn’t be considered “creepy” for being different. They should be proud of who they are without being judged by others.

This is a call to do away with calling people “creepy”. There should not be a social stigma in going up to a stranger and talking to them. Think about when was the last time you walked up to someone you didn’t know and started a conversation with them. It doesn’t happen very often. Meeting people through others is not the only way we are allowed to connect. Embrace talking to people who are different. Embrace talking to strangers, and for goodness sake stop calling everyone “creepy”!

There are some people out there who are creepy, but the vast majority of us are not. Let’s get more realistic and stop living in fear of our differences. Let’s stop living in a place where walking up to strangers and asking to join them for a cup of coffee is a problem. We should all try to talk to strangers. We should want to live in a world that is “creepy-free”.

On the Road

On the road again
Running from my fears
But I know when I reach the end
I still won’t have escaped them.

On the road again
Leaving behind what I know
I need another friend
To keep the pain away.

What am I doing?
Why am I not thinking straight?
I’m on the road again,
And don’t know where I’m going.

I could be happy here,
But I will never know
I don’t have the patience to wait
So I find myself on the road again.

On the road again
Surrounded by darkness and the cold
But something keeps me moving forward
Interested in the unknown.

On the road again
And I’m not the only one
Running away from what I know
To find something more.

I think I know what I’m doing
I think I’m thinking straight
But only time will tell
Where I end up going.

I might be happy here,
But what if I never know?
Patience takes lots of time
And I’m on the road again.

On the road again
Stronger than before
I might feel alone
But I know I always won’t.

On the road again
Learning as I go
I’m not running away
I’m running to find hope.

I know what I am doing
My mind is thinking straight
I can’t control time
But I can control my fate.

I know I’m happy here
I know that I’ve found hope
I’ll never be alone
As long as I am on the road.

Don’t fear the unknown
Don’t feel bad for yourself
What you are looking for
Can only be found in one place.

It’s never far away
Even if it seems hard to reach
It can be found on the road
Go ahead and take a leap.

Life’s commencement speech (2013)

Not too long ago I sat down in those seats with my fellow graduates. I was decked out in my robes and mortarboard and a sweet peacock blue tassel indicating a graduate from the school of management from my alma matter. Life should have seemed great. Not only was I graduating, but I had a job lined up. A task that I’m sure most of you have found out to be monumental. However, something didn’t seem right. I couldn’t pinpoint it at the time. I thought maybe it could have been that I was regretting leaving the college lifestyle; a lifestyle that I had grown very comfortable over the past four and a half years (Yes, I took an extra semester but my program was 150 credit hours). It could have been that I would miss my friends. It could have been that the path I had chosen at that point in my life had scared me. It could have been that I wasn’t ready to be an adult and accept responsibility. Maybe it was a little bit of all of the above. I was not proud of myself for what I had accomplished. I felt as if a piece of paper should not be celebrated, because I had not contributed anything to the world. At 22 years old most of us have not contributed to greater society yet.

Over the next year and a half I found out why I was not excited to graduate. It was a little bit of the things I had mentioned above, but the main reason was simple. I was not comfortable with myself. Right now you might be thinking that you know who you are, and you are confident in what you want to do in your life. However, I can promise you that there is something your missing as a 22 year old; life experience. There is a reason that you can’t run for president until you’re 35. It is this life experience factor. Most of you have been in school for your entire life, and at this moment a majority of you will never return. But guess what… most of you don’t know anything about life. If you are confident in your path then chase it. Work as hard as you can to accomplish what it is you want from life, but keep in mind the what if. What if something goes wrong? Do you have a backup plan?

You might find yourself in my shoes. Not sure if the path you are on is right in the first place. I worked for two months, and I knew that I had screwed up. Two months! That’s all it took me to realize it. Now I don’t regret my decisions. At 18, it sounded pretty good and I went with it. But if you think you know life now, think back to when you were 18. Did that beautiful/handsome person know anywhere near to what you know now? I’m going to assume not. I unfortunately did not have a backup plan. So there I was. My narrow path had reached an open field, and I had no GPS or map or compass. I was surrounded by nothing, and my life became miserable. I had no clue how to escape. I was hopeless.

Something amazing happened as time went on. I started to explore. That open field was no longer a problem; it was endless opportunities. For the first time in my life, I was able to make a conscious effort to find myself. A new path emerged, and I liked it. I wasn’t afraid to start on it, as going back to the path I was on before the open field wasn’t an option in my eyes. I started to look at life differently. I realized that happiness could not be found from the people around me. Happiness was a mentality that I could choose. I would have to make my own happiness. As 2013 rolled around, I decided that it would be the best year in my life. So far in 2013, I have come across many setbacks. More than I have typically had at one time. An injury and the end of a long term relationship seemed to be slowing down the best year of my life, but they weren’t. In a few months, I had gained life experience that I had never had before. I had gained wisdom. Wisdom that I can now share with you.

Before I finish, I would like to summarize in a way that hopefully will inspire each of you as you continue your journey.

Be proud of yourself today. Although you haven’t changed the world yet, no one expects you to at the age of 22. Look back and remember what hard work feels like and apply it as you move forward in life.

Find a way to be comfortable with yourself. It might not be easy, but finding yourself and liking who you are will be evident around others. If you do not feel comfortable with yourself, well then maybe you need to consider making some changes to find what makes you comfortable.

If you reach an open field in your life, do not freak out! It might be easy to seem lost, but realize you have the ability to go in any direction you want; a field of endless opportunities. Some of the most exciting opportunities you may have ruled out in the past are now sitting right in front of you.

Don’t be afraid to start a new path. It doesn’t mean you made mistakes in the past, it only means the path you were on led you here. It is ok to make mistakes when your 22 years old. No one expects you to be perfect.

Make your own happiness. Don’t wait for it to come to you, because it may never come. Make a conscious effort to make each day the best day of your life and you will find it.

Setbacks and failures make you wiser. Don’t dwell on them, but make a conscious effort to understand what went wrong and how you can improve yourself moving forward, as a newer and wiser individual.

Congratulations class of 2013. May you stay positive and change the world for the better.

Stress and Gen-Y

Arianna Huffington recently released an article about Millennials being the most stressed generation. If you haven’t read it click here.

This article made a lot of excellent points on why GEN-Y’s are stressed, listing student debt and the workforce as some of the main reasons.

One thing I have a problem doing is reading the comments below articles, and this does nothing but infuriate me. It was no different for this article. Comments consisted of a bunch of Baby-Boomers putting the blame on Millenials for being this way. Now I usually take blame for something that I did wrong, but the fact is I did nothing wrong. To have a generation that had everything handed to them in the prime years of the United States economy try to put me down even further shows a clear sight of ageism in the United States that isn’t being addressed whatsoever. Ageism is typically thought of as discriminating against older people, but as the general population ages, and a majority of individuals in the work force are between the ages of 40-60, there is a clear discrimination of young people entering the workforce. Baby-boomers will deny it. The same way they can deny that racism doesn’t exist when whites have been “overprivleged” for years. The same way they deny sexism when “women” can’t even make near the salary of a man in the workforce. I don’t think that the intensity of this is as bad as other “-ism’s”, but I do feel like there is  some discrimination going on here. The same way they discriminate against all minorities; they are now discriminating against their own children.

Now I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but some of the comments related to the article are so self-centered and have no regard to even try to think about what GEN-Y is going through.

Here’s a few examples:

“Stress is our internal reaction to these outside stimuli. Therefore, we all create our own stress by the reaction we choose. That’s why age and perspective make older generations progressively less stressed.”

Trying to relate to us, as if you have had to go through the same thing we’re going through. Look at how booming the US economy was when you started to work.

“Put down the video games and Red Bull, pick-up a Help Wanted section. If you’re not less stressed, at least your parents will be.”

Yes, because we are young, all of us must be irresponsible. None of us are looking for jobs. We just want a “free ride”.

My favorite is the multiple people who blame the president for us being stressed, because he hasn’t added more jobs.

The truth is we know that the job market is uneasy. We have been told for the past 6 years it will be tough to find a job, so we have come to learn to live with it. While it does cause some stress it is not the main reason.

The reason for stress is the mentality that it is virtually impossible for us to “fit-in” at work. We are overworked and underpaid. We try so hard to prove that we can make it, and that we are just as qualified as everyone else, but we are young, so we can’t be smart. We are forced to conform to the idea of working under the terms of the company we work for, because we can’t quit as finding another job could be next to impossible. The corporations win again, as there are thousands of people waiting to fill our job.

When I read articles like this, I feel empowered to voice my opinion. There will be no changes until other generations will allow changes to be made. This cannot be done by only our generation. We need help from the older generations, which it doesn’t seem like we will be getting anytime soon.

I hope GEN-Y fights for these changes. There are many things that need to be changed in society today. It is ridiculous that the Baby Boomers want us to be like them and act like them, because this is the only way to behave in the world. I refuse to conform to this idea that society is screwed up and we have to live with it like GEN-X. Let’s make a difference! Let’s improve the world for the better. We are the generation of change, so lets make change happen.

 

 

 

 

On a train to nowhere

Sitting on a train to nowhere.Waiting for my stop to come. The train is crowded as no one leaves. Sitting is only for the elders. Some have been here for years. Not phased by the everyday routine. Acting as if they have no control over their lives. The nuances of each day acting as their only sense of joy. Newer faces still have hope, waiting for their stop to come. But as time moves on, glimmers fade into monotony. Hoping that one day a seat will open up. Most have given up on reaching their stop, but those who get off look relieved. No more path to follow. No one to push out of the way. I can only wonder, why wait?

A Plea from Generation Y

2039 is a year of bliss, a year of growth, and a year where the past could be forgotten. Yet here I am with the past. We remember the past 25 years. Economic collapse, followed by a revolution of the people. We suffered and we overcame, but not without loss. My friends fought for everything. We were the generation of change. We were open to ideas that would progress the world to the future. Yet we remembered the hard work of our grandparents. Our parents didn’t understand. They couldn’t stop telling us how they gave us everything in a time when everything could be given. It is easy for them to say.

I think back to being a kid, and they were right. They did give us everything. They gave us anything we would ask for. Food led us to gluttony. Possessions led us to envy. Entertainment led us to lust and sloth and wrath. Society had already accepted pride and greed. They were all there; all seven deadly sins.

The early 20’s were the worst. Our parents were retiring, and we thought things would get easier for us. Employers didn’t want us. We didn’t learn the importance of technology at birth like out younger brothers and sisters. We helped society make that change, and agreed it was important in education. I guess you could say it was our fault, but the cards we were given didn’t give us much choice. We were martyrs. More focused on making the world a better place than preparing for the new world.

The 30’s weren’t much better. One by one our parents started to pass away. They left us with an unpaid mortgage on a house, and nothing else. Their life insurance money was gone. The had to cash it in for growing medical costs. They never expected to live this long, and neither did the banks and investors. None of them had saved enough money to live. They were relying on Social Security and Medicare, but those were just policies of the past by then.

We were skipped; The smallest generation and the forgotten. The hard workers, the education advocates, the change makers; it didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was technology. We knew it was coming to this. Back when we were young universities weren’t prepared. Our technology skills were out of date, and only a few of us could afford to keep up with the new trends.

Our qualifications don’t matter anymore. Everything we learned is done by computers now. I write this to ask our brothers for help. Please try to understand.  Try to look past our large depression and mental problems, because our situation was never great. We helped you get where you are today. We are not looking for pity, just respect. Give us something to live for. Help us become better people.

Sincerely,

Gen-Y