I’m have no doubt that you’ve all be desperately awaiting my tidbits of post college wisdom. I feel bad to have held out for so long. Now you know what the girls I date feel like.

For those of you still in college (and I’m hoping that some of you are, so that this post is not completely devoid of value) here is my sage wisdom… some of which can be found in my Senior Spotlight in the UVU Review.

• Don’t sit in the same chair every day. We are creatures of habit. We do what’s comfortable to us. Instead of sitting in the same chair every day, take the chance to move around as the semester rolls along. I met some of my best college friends this way. Plus, if you creep someone out sitting next to them one day, or a new hottie adds the class late,  it won’t look suspicious if you move seats…
• High five your professors. Professors like ambitious students who are nice to them… at least the professors who are worth knowing. When you are friends with your professors, doors of opportunity will open for you during school, and after graduation. I’ve only been graduated for a month, and I’ve already seen the perks of having professors as friends. I mean, they let me pass my classes, didn’t they?
• Don’t take classes early in the morning. Taking early morning classes is just a foolish thing to do. It’s likely that you’ll fail your early classes because you won’t want to wake up in the mornings. Sure, at the beginning of the semester you’re excited to get up early and rush off to campus, but trust me, thing change. Friends are made. Parties are attended. Sometimes you get lost in Walmart or Ikea while playing hide and seek. Crazy stuff happens. And trust me, after a night of hiding behind a Hemnes for 3 hours, 8:00 tends to lose its appeal.
• Never buy text books... especially for upper division classes. (Science and Math are the exceptions.) You won’t read them anyway. Spend the money on something cool, like gum.
• Work for free. Find someone in your field, preferably someone with influence, and help them. Bend over backwards to do free stuff for them… as long as that stuff doesn’t involve a goat, a dwarf and a jar of peanut butter.  When you graduate, their referral will go a long way.
• Build your own personal brand. I’m not talking about your own “musk,” I’m talking about making sure that people can find you if they look for you.  Make sure you write things worth reading.. Make yourself findable on the Googles. Trust me, it pays off to have a Twitter account that links to a blog that has a contact page that connects with your email address… just in case someone wants to offer you a job that way… which has happened more than once.
• Be different. Lots of people want to be the same as everyone else in college. They all want to get A’s. They want to suck up to professors. They want to graduate with jobs… and most of the time they fake it the whole way, expecting it to pay off. Just be you. Be nice. Be thoughtful. Work hard. Smile a lot. Then, things will work out.

I can’t tell you how good it feels to be done with school. I currently have my dream job. I have my fair share of autonomy, I’m allowed to master the things I’m passionate about, and I have purpose as a huge contributor.  I plan to make an impact here, just as I left an impact at UVU.

Don’t hate.

The Blind Men and the Elephant

It was six men of Indostan,
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind,)
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! But the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! What have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”

The third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he,”the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
“Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree.”

The fifth who chanced to touch an ear,
Said, “E’dn the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most:
Deny the fact we can,
This marvel of an elephant
Is very like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope.
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right
And all were in the wrong.

-John Godfrey Saxe

I’ve heard you talking. You’re scared.

You hate my generation.

You look around at us, and all you see is a group of semi-literate, Ritalin addicts who can’t put down their phones long enough to participate in a face to face conversation consisting of anything more than 140 characters. We possess no work ethic, and we get all of our news from Comedy Central. Our overwhelming sense of entitlement drives you insane, and our credit scores make you shake your head in shame.

You’ve talked it over on the golf green with your overpaid, corporate executive friends. You’ve all decided that a future of Facebook addicted, text messaging hipsters whose video gaming has all but obliterated their social skills  is bleak and far from promising.

You laugh at our ideas.

You laugh at our lifestyle.

You hate our music.

You hate our clothes.

You refuse see our worth.

The future you see us creating is anything but ideal.

Now, let’s be honest. The future you’re so scared we’re going to ruin… it’s really not you’re future, is it? You won’t be around to live it, will you?

I will.

And I’m here to tell you that your hope-deprived and faithless views of the iPod generation is wrong. We are strong. We are open minded. We are creators, artists and geniuses.

We have the courage to look at the traditional 40 hour work week, the educational system, Social Security and fossil fuels and admit that we’re doing it wrong. We have the capacity to demand change and to make a difference. We aren’t afraid to negotiate and compromise to make a better world for each other.

We are adapters. We are fixers. We are inventors. We are risk takers.

I look at the old world you cling to so desperately and I see what it can become if you would just open your eyes and trust my vision of the future. Our youth does not equate to stupidity. Our inexperience does not imply a monopoly of good ideas – or right ideas for that matter – on your part.

We are the movers and shakers. We are the generation who is going to save the world you have left in ruins. Remember (if you can) your early twenties. For you to get where you are today, somebody had to give you a chance. Somebody had to see potential in this poor, disenchanted, wannabe-world-changer from the upcoming rebel generation. They saw something in you, and they gave you a shot. Without them, you wouldn’t be where you are today…

Now look at me.

I’m not going to sit around and wait for you to hand me my chance. If you don’t have the vision to see the incredible tapestry we’re weaving, then get out of the picture, or we’ll cut you out.

I am not weak. I am not stupid. And I’m going to take over your company, your industry and your world whether you like it or not. Pick a side… but pick wisely.

Sincerely yours,

Generation Next

Part of me thinks I shouldn’t write this, because making my personal life fairly public can risky. The last thing I want is a bunch of pity comments from people trying to sympathize with a situation they know nothing about. (That’s why comments have been disabled.) However, I know that someone needs to hear this.

At the moment, I need to come to grips with a tidal wave of experiences and emotions that have slammed me in the heart over the past day or so.

If you’re familiar with Abraham of the Bible, you know he was an old dude. He was also promised that he’d have posterity. Lots and lots of posterity.  I’m sure that as the years passed by and there were no children, Abraham started to wonder whether or not he was going to get that one thing that he most desired… a son.  He struggled. He wavered. And finally, when it was announced that his wife would bear a child, he doubted.

I can only imagine his joy when he finally came to grips with reality. He really was going to have that one thing he always wanted! Isaac was born, and Abraham was happy…

Until one day when Abraham got a message. A really crappy message. Abraham had to destroy the one thing that he held more dear than anything else. He was commanded to kill Isaac. He literally had to kill the one son who was the absolute key to the fulfillment of so many promises and so much happiness.

The request to sacrifice is not uncommon in scripture. This particular sacrifice though, I think, is on a whole different scale of significance.  He was asked to sacrifice his only son, and for reasons he did not understand.

The surprising thing? He did it…

He could have disobeyed. He could have ignored the messages and promptings he’d received to do this unbearable thing. But instead, he packed up his son, put him on an altar, and had every intention of completing the sacrifice until an angel stayed his hand.

I never understood the significance of this story.

Sacrificing the thing you love most in this world because of your faith in God seems cruel. I can tell you now that it also feels unnaturally painful and harsh. The unanswered questions, the overwhelming emotions, the emptiness and the longing for something you know you can’t have… it’s the closest thing I’ve experienced to unbearable in my life.

It’s not easy. It’s at a Crap level of infinity.

My hope is that, like Abraham, the promises made will be fulfilled, and that one day peace and happiness will return… and not just for me.

451143.

Beyond this whole vague personal trial of Abraham, my heart goes out to my dear Chilean friends and family. I hope so much that you are all alive and safe.

As expected, his presentation was amazing. Details to come.

I’m sorry it’s been so long since I said hello… I’ve been busy having the Best. Week. Ever.

For starters, I had what the worldly would call a kick-ass presentation at work. One of the things I’ve noticed after spending a few years working in a corporate environment is that people are generally weak and complacent. I recently decided to give up the facade, and just go after the things I want. If I get chewed out, so be it. The risk of achieving something incredible that nobody else has ever done is worth it.

So, I called a meeting with the executive team of the company I’ve been working at for only a month. Basically, I drug their website through the mud… probably a little too harshly, but in the end I got what I wanted. We all came to the consensus that we needed to make a change.

I am now spearheading the site redesign so I can effectively put into place my internet marketing plans to drive hundreds of thousands of people to our site. I’m so excited to transform this company, and show them that I can do things they never thought possible.

To celebrate my personal victory in the board room, I purchased a new phone. It’s a Palm Pre, and I love it more than the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland… and that’s saying something. I promise.

The following day, I applied for graduation. I can’t explain in words the feelings of joy and accomplishment I gained from this experience. I can, however, show you what my victory dance looked like.

Not 30 minutes after completing my graduation application, I received an email (on my  new phone) informing me that I’d just won $50 from an internship competition I’d entered a few months earlier. We were supposed to write an essay explaining why we had the best internship experience ever. I won the Best Carreer-Building Experience award, and will post a link as soon as it goes up on the Career Services website.

The next day I was sifting through my Google Reader and stumbled upon this petition for Interns from Andy Sernovitz of Gas Pedal. If you don’t know who Andy Sernovitz is, or what GasPedal is, well… that’s ok. But, in a nutshell, he’s a hero of mine, and it’s a company I would LOVE to work for. I applied that day, and heard back almost emidiately. I have a call to discuss an internship tomorrow (Tuesday).

You’d think this would be the end of the best week ever, wouldn’t you? Well, it’s not.

On Friday I found out I was a finalist for a trip to New York over spring break. A professor in my department scored a grant and is taking 7 students to network with industry professionals for 5 days. Fourty students applied. Twelve were called back for interviews.

I felt really good about the interview, and not 3 hours later got a call with the news that I was chosen to participate.

At this point, my brain exploded. The amount of awesome experienced in one week was just too much to handle. There was really only one thing I could do at this point.  I sat in my bedroom and did a slow clap for myself.

If there is one thing I’ve learned from this week, it’s that the only way to be freakin’ awesome is to take risks and do all of the crap nobody else wants to do.  When you get down to the nitty gritties, most people are pretty much pansies. They don’t have the cojones to think they can succeed. They fear failure. They quake at the idea of competition. And that, my friends, is why I succeeded this week and will continue to do so. I refuse to be satisfied. I don’t care who I have to compete against to get what I want – I’m going to fight tooth and nail to get it, and unless my competition is willing to do the same… well… you can guess who will end up with the WIN.

Thanks to Ryan for pointing me to this video… it expresses exactly how I’ve been feeling lately.

When I go shopping (even if I decide to make an organized list beforehand) I spend the majority of my time frantically running up and down rows and rows of products in a very less-than-intuitive manner searching for the list of products I desire.  I guess I still haven’t aclimated myself to the fact that most stores are laid out in a semi-logical manner. I’ll often walk down the same aisle multiple times in search for various objects on my list… and, not surprisingly, I almost always leave the store with more than what I came for.

How does this relate to my life, you ask? Well, sometimes I feel like I do a lot of running around, often in circles, trying to get everything done. I’ll make a list of important things with a determination to find them. I almost always end up getting what I’d hoped for, and often times I leave with even more.

Regardless of how well I plan a trip, however, it’s almost a guarantee that I return home exausted, determined not do make another trip till absolutely necessary. But somewhere, secretly, I’m satisfied with my accomplishment.

Does that make sense to anyone else but me? Meh, I guess it really doesn’t need to. This post was more for me than you anyway.