Probably when I get married; probably when I have a child. Or when I experience my first death of someone who I hold dear to my heart. Most likely, more then likely, those transitions will require bigger life adjustments. The aforementioned steppingstones in life are the times when you have to dig real deep into your emotional palate and select which of those delicate feelings you are going to let either reign supreme or let ruin you. 2013 was a year of two great sets of six months. From January to February I was a second semester senior at Emory University, taking only a one hour fitness class every other Wednesday. And while much of my day was occupied with the diligent search for a job, my evenings were filled with the kinds of debauchery that surprised even myself. The kind of debauchery you didn't know you were capable of, unlocked only by the looming realization that college was minutes away from the show's final number. Because in the next six months, May-December I joined the working world.
When I received the call from my now boss telling me that I got the job, there was a numbing effect. It started in my chest, more then likely the result of a heart that had just been pricked with a metaphorical adrenaline syringe. Quickly however, the numbness raged on to my head. And after the initial shockwave, after I called my parents and listened to them both cry, the feeling began to subside. Left in my mind was a kind of calm I hadn't known for quite some time. Secretly, although apparently not so secretly as told by my college friends, I had wondered if there would be a lifelong sense of regret over my decision to become an English major. There were plenty of times that I watched all of my friends scurry around to make sure they had their Financial Accounting case studies handed in on time. And for however many times I witnessed this phenomenon, there were three times as many group projects in the library until 2am, back-test sharing sessions before the Business Law exam, and complaining sessions about the resume workshop they had to attend. This isn't to say that I didn't work hard in school. As hard as I worked to be the best English major I could possibly be, I worked twice as hard rounding out my resume. Aside from the obligatory internships all tri-state area Jewish kids cut each other for, I spent my four years of college putting on the schools concerts, comedians, spirit weeks, and homecomings. Along with working at Warner Music Group throughout my Junior and Senior year, I often found myself desperate for a minute of relief. But one thing always lingered: the regret that I didn't challenge myself academically, and the feeling that I copped out by being an English major. But that all changed when I got my first job, a fantastic marketing job, before the end of my senior year. I realized that instant that what was more important than what I studied was in fact not what the subject was, but instead how hard I studied it. The fact that I had pushed myself and that I had procured this work ethic was going to carry me further into my professional life then what subject I studied. (That is of course a complete blanket statement. For example, if you know you want to go into finance then you should probably be finance major. The same logic goes for those wanting to be in medical school.) Receiving this job with one month left of school meant that I had about thirty days to consume all of the alcohol, drugs, food, and partying that the great city of Atlanta had to offer. Especially because the job offer came with a caveat: I had to start working on May 20th. Innocuous by itself, but life-changing when you consider that Emory College graduation was May 16th.
I've learned a lot since work has begun. Namely:
Carry yourself with integrity
The phrase "work hard" actually means something
You will never be handed anything in life besides a pink slip
Your words are the envelope that your actions seal
Your family are the only people who care 100% about you
Nothings going to ever hurt as much as it does right now
Your time is valuable, and if someone or something is valuable they will be given your time
Additionally, get places on time. And certainly don't waste other people's time
Drinking until you blackout is no longer acceptable, but achieving a decent buzz while still being able to keep your head on straight is actually pretty fun.
Don't drink cheap wine
Some people can smoke pot and some people can't. Don't force it if your in the latter group just because you used to smoke during college.
Likewise, don't force anything.
Don't do anything that requires you to "suck it up"
Don't hang out with people you don't like
Make your group of friends a reflection of how you want yourself to be presented.
See a therapist if you need to. Every year you go to the doctor for yearly checkups on your body, so why wouldn't you go for a checkup on your mind?
Try not to make judgments, but don't be ashamed of yourself if you end up doing so. Everyone does, and anybody who says otherwise is lying. Just temper your judgments and allow them to be flexible
Don't care about what other people think of you
Don't use the above quote to justify letting yourself go or to do stupid things
Relish in life's simple pleasures
Cut your hair, shave your face, brush your teeth, clean your face, go to the gym, make smart food decisions, and take yoga classes
Make a routine involving all of the above actions and stick to it. Realize that routines take time to click, and don't get frustrated when this takes a while
Real men wake up early
Read books at any opportunity you have
Don't trust anybody who claims they "don't listen to music"
Go to more concerts and go to more museums
Know what's going on in and around your community
Don't be frustrated if you feel like you can't keep in touch with all of your college friends. Unfortunately, you're only going to go on with four or five close friends from school and the sooner you realize that the better.
Understand and accept that you're not going to be able to achieve all of these goals. Just because I wrote them all doesn't mean I've even come close to doing them all. What's important is that I've recognized that applying even a quarter of these goals will make my life better. As long as your constantly in the business of improving your life, then you're already better then you were one minute ago. And once you hit one goal, the rest seem to fall in place.
The most important thing I learned throughout 2013 however is to be yourself. It's something that took a lot of time for me to understand as I made the transition from college student on the outs to young professional on the in. You forget, by the end of college, what it's like to really make friends again. You do it when your young, some people do it when they go into high school, and then we all do it when we start college. But four years later you should be quite comfortable, if you're lucky. By the end of school I had never been surrounded by a group of people I felt more loved by, and by a group of people I loved more, then those who were graduating with me. My natural assumption was that I was going to have the same experience with my co-workers.
Nothing could have prepared me for what was to come. I walked into my office with a few pre-conceived notions. 1) Everyone at work was looking to make new friends 2) my boss and I were going to have a father son relationship 3) my group was going to go out for happy hour after every work day and 4) everyone was the same age. Well, what I learned shortly was that my first assumption wasn't entirely wrong. People rather were looking to make "work friends," a concept I was not really aware of. Throughout my life I'd had high school friends, dorm friends, fraternity brothers, and sorority sisters. But the concept of a work friend, one which required distinct boundaries, wasn't anything I had really considered before. I always prided myself on breaking down boundaries in the form of crude humor and shots of vodka. I always felt that I gave people a place where they could let down their guard, where they found themselves laughing at things they never thought would be brought public before. But the work friend was something else. You don't realize it when your 22, but making friends is hard. It'd been a full four years since I really had to make a new set of friends again (the start of college). To go from an emotional high to such emotional distress made me question a lot of things. It made me question who I was and how I appeared to other people. I always thought I was funny, but somehow nobody at the office was laughing at my jokes. Soon enough I began to feel like the kid who groups of people in the midst of great conversation dreaded when he appeared. I'd felt self-conscious before, but never in a setting when I felt like I had so much to prove. This was my first job out of college, the make or break year. I was fortunate to be given an amazing opportunity, but was angry that it came at the time that it did. I came home visibly shaken up, but elicited little sympathy due to the fact that I was employed. I wanted to be myself, but I felt like that wasn't good enough. Conversations, which normally fell out of my mouth like drool from a gaping onlooker, became as stale. With my psyche beaten, I finally mustered up the courage to see a therapist. Now maybe throughout my life I should have seen one at some point. But this was a new low. There is no feeling worse then that which occurs when you truly doubt your core.
It was good to have someone objective to talk to. And what he reminded me is what I stated before: making friends is hard. You need to learn where people's boundaries lie. Do I think that the moment I met my college friends I made fun of them for something embarrassing? My therapist and I spoke about it, but he reminded me that all he could do was give suggestions. It was going to be up to me to actually implement anything we spoke about during our sessions. Sure enough, over time I began to relax around the office. I made a general rule of thumb: If I had to think about a joke I was going to say then it probably wasn't going to be funny. A friend of mine had told me a while back that I'm much funnier when I'm not trying to be, and it was never something I actually took to heart until now. When I stopped feeling like I had something to prove, or like I had friends that I needed to make, things started to fall into place for myself. It's not that things are perfect every day moving forward, but six months into my first job I've become quite comfortable around the folks I spend five days a week eight hours a day with. It was all about me being myself, and letting my personality naturally develop instead of forcing friendships upon these strangers. These are the types of life lessons you learn in the first grade. But then again, there's a reason that books like "Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Elementary School Science Class" are so successful. It was difficult to make the transition from a college student with nothing to lose to a young professional with everything to gain. At the time I was distressed, but in retrospect I'm happy that things worked out the way they did. I was forced to figure out who I was, and was fortunate enough because when I did people really did accept it. The world just has no time for the fake side of yourself, because you don't believe in it and neither do they.
My boss and I began to develop a relationship. Not a father son relationship, but a trusting one. He feels comfortable sending me tasks on a daily basis, and it excites me when they are filled with legitimate responsibility. We didn't go to happy hour every day, but once we all began to feel more comfortable in each other's presence the drinks began to flow. What really shocked me was that I working with 28 and 29 year olds. I just never suspected that the people in my office were anything other then recent college graduates fumbling for a purpose. Whether it was re-assuring or not though, I soon came to understand that even the 28 and 29 year olds were likewise still fumbling for a sense of purpose. It gave me the potentially heartwarming, potentially deathly realization that most of us will spend the rest of our lives looking for our purpose. Is it the journey that matters, or is it the answer you find? Who knows, I guess I have to live a little bit more. 2013 was a year of great change for myself, and when all is said and done I'm proud of what I've learned.
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