i realized i wasn’t a student anymore.

you could probably say i was going through a mini quarter life crisis. for me, these questions hit pretty close to home.

1. Are you in a “funk” where you feel like nothing is terribly wrong, but nothing seems right either?
3. Are you unmotivated, directionless or passionless?
4. Are you concerned that you don’t know what you want to do with your life?
10. Are you stressed out by choices that seemingly will affect the rest of your life?
11. Are you experiencing confusion or disappointment in your career?
20. Do you frequently compare yourself to other people your age and feel like you don’t measure up?
23. Are you thinking about going back to grad school because you don’t know what else to do with your life?

if you were as lucky as i was growing up, you really only had to worry about going to school and doing well every year. on a sidenote, i’ve seen a disappointing number of people take this for granted. it kills me to see so many of my peers just, for lack of a better word, ‘coasting’ when i think about the number of people that would kill for a chance to walk in our shoes. i do recognize that people are different and it’s probably naive and borderline judgmental to say that. i guess what i’m really trying to say is that i feel blessed for the hand i’ve been dealt in this life and try to catch myself taking too much for granted.

back to my main point.

for the most part, if you’re like me (and i guess, right around the same age), the last eight or nine years your life have been centered around taking standardized exams, getting into college, getting an internship somewhere and ultimately, landing a decent job. hopefully, somewhere along the way you make a few friends, fall in and out of “love” and find some fleeting inspiration for what you think will be the rest of your life. in retrospect, figuring out what i needed to do and how well i performed at each step was relatively easy. it’s important to understand that i’m not saying this is always the case nor is this a recipe for success in your own life, these are simply the benchmarks and guidelines i set for myself. for example, to get into a decent college, i knew i had to keep my grades up in high school and do relatively well on my standardized exams. similarly, to snag a competitive job, i knew i had to maintain a relatively high gpa and burnish my resume with some flashy internships and relevant extracurricular pursuits.

however, life isn’t always that black and white.

other variables you might also consider: emotional/intellectual maturity, interview skills, effective communication skills, whether or not you remembered to brush your teeth that day, the weather, the curry you just had for lunch, the list goes on. now i don’t mean to belittle the consequential impact of the curry or your boy/girlfriend’s haphazard emotional state on any given day, but on some fundamental level, there exists an intrinsic, quantifiable, gauge of performance; a measuring stick of sorts. it’s as if society says you’re doing a good job when you achieve the goals that have been laid out in front of you for the past couple of years.

but now what?

as i walked across the stage to shake hands one last time with all of my professors, i thought to myself, this is it. it’s my turn to drive. from here on out, it’s my turn to really start calling the shots and making the decisions that will ultimately have a direct impact on my professional and personal pursuits. this realization was both refreshingly liberating and incredibly scary at the same time. going forward, there would be significantly less black and white in my life and a whole lot more gray. how do i know i’m doing a good job? is what i’m doing now going to help me get where i want to be in the future? do i even want to be there? for me, the scariest part of all was losing that fundamental level of clarity that you’d grown accustomed to and realizing that there really is no right or wrong answer.

there is no measuring stick anymore.

i suppose you could make the argument that there never was a ‘measuring stick’ as everyone is unique in defining their own expectations. in the past year or two, i think i’m finally beginning to realize that it’s not a measuring stick i need anymore, it’s a compass.

in any case, welcome to my blog and thanks for reading! i know it’s weird to welcome you in the very last paragraph of such a long-winded entry but i guess if you’ve made it this far, you deserve it! this blog is an exercise in defining just a little bit about what makes me, me. i can’t promise not to make a fool out of myself nor will i promise not to waste your time with my bizarre thoughts but nonetheless, i hope you enjoy what you read and find just a little bit of intellectual stimulation or amusement =).

cheers!

you’re staring down-table at that shiny, red, white-rimmed cup filled with “beer”, backwash and sweet, sweet glory. you pick up that crusty, white ping pong ball and hone in on your target. as your breathing slows, you tell yourself that this night is your night, that tonight you will be a man amongst men and that if you make this cup, you might just have a chance with that 7 that’s been sitting by her friends shooting you suggestive glances all night.

your opponents engage you in some customarily offensive banter. they start to question your masculinity (or femininity, i suppose), your sexual orientation; they even ridicule your beloved teenage mutant ninja turtles t-shirt that you’ve worn every friday since the eighth grade. your excuse of a partner fails to defend you from this scathing commentary. you look over at him and think to yourself, ‘what a bitch’.

at the other end of the table, your opponents have begun the traditional ‘last cup mating dance’. first, they pretend to cast an invisible wall around their holy grail while making what you can only describe as, ‘magic noises’. this act of grand wizardry is succeeded by a silent pantomime where each opponent moves their hands from left to right in an effort to throw off your aim. the third act surprises you. one opponent places an open palm behind the cup defiantly declaring that he has successfully predicted the trajectory of your throw and that it will in fact, land in his hand. the other, repeatedly thrusts his pelvis towards the cup. class act, that one. you’re impressed, but you’re careful not to smirk or reveal any other sign of weakness. in your head, you start to turn the volume down around you.

the silence is deafening.

you bend your knees and cock the ball back. your partner stares in awe at your perfect form. you release the ball as you straighten your knees. as it leaves your fingertips, you look over at your partner again and think to yourself, ‘what a bitch’.

vote now!

A: you make it.
B: you miss.