To Be Who We Once Were...

            Today, millions of people are tuning in to watch President Barack Obama’s second inauguration.  With so many eyes focused in on the core of our nation, it’s almost impossible not to feel a little proud to be American.  This is a pride that doesn’t come easily for a nation that is just struggling to walk again after the crippling effects that our over-confidence once had. Nonetheless, with the sun shining down on the bleached heart of democracy, it’s hard not to feel a little hopeful about the future. 

            The pressure on our leader and his family today must be crushing. His strength is our strength and the support that his family gives him equally as representative. Yet, the critical eye can’t help but notice the weary look in his eyes. Like the increased proportion of gray in his hair, it indicates to us that he too has suffered from the effects of the last four years. This is comforting to a nation of exhausted workers because the hope in all of our hearts is that today will serve as our re-ignition.

            After today, the torch of progress will be passed to the American people again. The question that should be on all of our minds is, “What can we do differently this time?”  Here are a few thoughts on the possible answer:

·      Much of the progress that has been made thus far has been measured with the sweat and tears of the employed, and while that must continue, there needs to be a larger focus on innovation and new ideas. The world is thirsty for fresh perspectives, and there are countless youth eager to provide them with just that.

·      The gap between the rich and the poor is larger than ever with the rich getting richer over the past four years while the proportion of Americans whom consider themselves to be poor is barely even hitting a plateau in growth. We can no longer afford to preserve their lifestyles while the majority of us are struggling to put food on our tables. More legislation has to be passed that supports those who cannot work and are suffering each day because of their misfortunes.

·      Healthcare must become more universal. I have seen first hand the prejudice that exists towards those without health insurance. We still have people that believe America has the best healthcare in the country while many of our fellow Americans are DENIED treatment because they don’t have enough money to afford insurance. This is barbaric. WAKE UP!!

·      And finally, we have to get a handle on gun control in the coming years. We have had far too many deaths recently resulting from our inaction on this issue. Regardless of what exactly changes, something HAS to happen soon.

  

            This all may seem like a lot to swallow, but I think that is the message of today’s inauguration: Our work has just begun. The take-away here, though, is that we are all in this together. From the richest to the poorest, the sickest to the healthiest, the oldest to the youngest, we all are Americans, and while the President represents our voice to the world, we all can and do make a difference in shaping that voice. Let’s be who we once were.

Read More

Imagination is Power

"Live out of your imagination, not your history."
-Stephen Covey-

Any frequent "daydreamer" knows that it's not unlikely to sometimes miss entire conversations going on around you due to the mental energy being used inside your own mind to create your artificial environment. It's this ability to shut down entire sensory modalities in order to utilize our brains' ability to create entirely original ideas that sets us apart from other, less-inteligent animals. This ability to create new information using recombined bits of our memories is also known as imagination, and it has led mankind into making some of its greatest achievements. In cognitive psychology, one form of human imagination is the combination of several simple parts into more complex new objects, and it is this kind of imagination that is frequently the origin of scientific innovations. The "recombinations" are also what inspires those "ah-ha" moments in our lives. Yet, beyond the realm of invention, our imagination can also be used as a tool with which we can create new experiences in our lives. This is the kind of imagination that inspires those times when you're sitting in your cubicle around 2 PM while your conscious mind is busy sitting on the beach in the Bahamas.

On a more serious note, though, I want to encourage those who are stuck in a bad situation or who are unhappy in their lives to use their imagination to their advantage. When I was a child, I read books and wrote my own stories about magical worlds and impossible feats of adventure. Now I understand that this was a way for me to explore the world of possibilities and have limitless "playgrounds" while still being physically situated in rural Tennessee. I know It may not seem very useful in the moment, but, as Einstein once said: "Imagination is everything. It's the preview of life's coming attractions." In other words, our imagination is a method by which we can peer into the future and determine the means by which to attain the goals we envision. So let's take an astronaut, for example. This astronaut often imagines himself as being the first human to walk on Titan, one of Saturn's moons. This astronaut is very passionate about reaching Titan so he starts thinking of all of the conceivable ways in which he could get himself there. Eventually he may combine his knowledge of space travel with other, unrelated bits of information in his memory to create a new method of long-distance space travel that no one else would have been able to conceive. If he had not been able to imagine himself reaching that planet then he may not have attempted to find a way to get there. What's more is that none of society would have been able to benefit from the technology that would result. Had he, at any point, told himself that it was impossible for humans to get to Titan then his uncertainty would have prevented the possiblity from becoming the reality it could have once been. So:

The moment that you lose hope in the possibility of the future you imagine for yourself is, ironically, the same moment that it becomes impossible to attain.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that you can never lose confidence in the things that you imagine for yourself. Even if the result is, in fact, impossible to achieve. I can guarantee to you that the effect of having hope in itself is worthy of the effort. All I know is that despite the amount of human suffering in the world, there is still a constant forward motion. Things must, by their nature, change and the smartest of us are the ones who know how to direct the motion in their lives. I don't think that people need ultimate control over their lives to be happy, but I do know that hope always gives us strength and I've never seen a situation wherein strength wasn't a powerful ally. So imagine the life you want and don't allow yourself to question the possibility that it can come true. Maybe you will surprise yourself.

Read More

What happened to our futures?!

I’m a recent college graduate from a private university which consistently ranks among the top 20 universities in the US. I have to confess, though, that I am less than impressed with the return on the 24 years of dedication and focus that I invested into my education. In the five months since receiving my degree, I have been teaching myself some new skills to gain a competitive edge in the job market; this includes a firm grasp of computer/web-programming (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, & JQuery so far), digital media editing (Adobe CS6) and better approaches to marketing via social media. Nonetheless, I have yet to find a job. So my question is:

What happened to the future we were promised?

It’s a valid question in today’s society. We have somehow shifted the emphasis on knowledge in the workplace to an emphasis on immediacy and efficiency. And it comes at no surprise given the rapid-fire bits of commercialism that we are assaulted with in our day-to-day lives. In journalism, writers are even told that they have less than 150 characters to grab the reader’s attention and give them the major points of your article before the reader loses their focus & moves on to the next big headline. REALLY?! I mean they even developed an entire website based on this idea (yes, I’m looking at you Twitter).

This focus on efficiency and "doing what works" leaves little room for new ideas, much less new employees. So what about the hordes of new college grads, like myself, that have incurred untold amounts of debt from our student loans? Why aren’t we getting the “dream jobs” that we were promised? It only takes one look at a list of job openings to answer that question: employers are only targeting “experienced and expert talent”. THIS IS WHY OUR ECONOMY IS FAILING, PEOPLE!!! Maybe the older generations can’t see it because they are too busy trying to keep up with the digital revolution that has transformed the entire structure of corporate America in the past ten years, but take it from a generation that grew up online: you have to start focusing on fresh and malleable ideas if you want to get ahead of the competition. "Doing what works" isn't going to work anymore, sorry! But where do these ideas come from, you ask?

Ah, yes! From the younger generations, of course!!

Yes, thats the very same population that the corporate world is currently neglecting. Well, I can’t help but find a little bit of comic relief from the irony of it all. College grads need the jobs to pay for off our student loans and survive, and the employers need us to help them improve their revenues (whether they know that or not). But as they remain paralyzed with fear of inexperienced workers, we are further developing our web-based culture and pretty soon, without us, they will all become as obsolete as we are to them now.

So my suggestion to struggling companies out there: I have no pity for your revenue decreases so stop complaining. If you want to prosper in the market these days you should open your doors to younger, more tech-savvy employees. What we lack in experience, we more than make-up for with our quick learning, resilience, and adaptability. We drove the web trends of the past decade so I think we have more experience than you give us credit for. We are quickly learning that we have what you need and, as a fair warning, if you don’t start making us fit into your job market soon then soon we will make our own job market. Just don’t say we didn’t warn you!

Read More

The Millenials' Challenge

As a member of the Millenial generation, I have an understanding of the fatal flaw that the American culture suffers from. Our elders are from an era of American prosperity when the wealth was abundant and access to successful endeavors were available to anyone willing to work for them. Unfortunately, America is no longer that nation of opportunity. The millenials, myself included, were raised to believe that we could do anything we wanted, but we, instead, are meeting our futures with disappointment.

Just as we are entering into adulthood, the world seems to be closing its doors on us. We are left holding the reigns of our future while the "roadmaps" that once led us to our destinations seem to be leading us even deeper into the world of inopportunity. It seems like some kind of premise for a Greek Tragedy, doesn't it? A hero on a journey of insurmountable odds....So let's stick with that analogy for a moment.

We are now in the depths of the "labyrinth", but this is our time to prove ourselves. It would be easy to convince ourselves that we are deserving of this misfortune and give up, but the point of this challenge is to prove our worth. In the original Greek tragedies, the protagonist would be given a challenge wherein he/she would have to prove his-/herself as being stronger than the gods believed possible from a mere human. In this challenge, the hero had to descend into darkness and, in doing so, become removed from the comforts of the outside world. Starting to understand the analogy?

The point is that we, as a generation, have been charged with the responsibility of repairing the broken pieces of our country, and with reshaping the pieces that don't seem to fit right anymore. If we can lead our country through this catharsis then we will know we have trascended the limitations placed upon our futures. So don't get discouraged by all the closed doors because they are only making us stronger as a generation.

Read More