Communication is key. It’s always better to be honest. After all, like that random old saying says, it’s simply easier to remember the truth.
Ron Swanson‘s great-great grandfather, “Sammy Clementine”
After a quick Google, I found that the actual saying was crafted by the amazing Samuel Clemens, also known as Mark Twain. My main man Mark once said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”
So, in all honesty, I started this blog 2 years ago because it was required of me for a journalism course in college. It was really a great class, and while I may not have been the teacher’s favorite padawan, I learned a lot. But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here for an entirely different purpose now.
Now, after graduating from college and moving to China (random, I know) to help a friend with his business venture, I find the blogosphere calling out to me, beckoning me to take up my metaphorical pen and commence writing once more.
I started this blog as an assignment that had to focus entirely on journalism, technology, and their convergence. Now, the ideal we will strive towards together is the observation of a recent graduate’s quest to find a happiness (or at least a good job) while simultaneously entertaining you, the Internet, and all those alleged bots that require me to do CAPTCHAs.
So, I suppose a well-placed hyphen could “improve” this situation.
While I can make no promises regarding any chuckles or LOL moments, I’ll make the same guarantee that I do in my cover letters, I will always to my best.
I suppose the beginning is the best place to start…
After graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I was clueless. Lost. Confused. Insert any other adjective associated with a question mark and you should be good. I didn’t know what I wanted. It’s not that I hadn’t been prepared. My teachers and friends were very helpful and provided me with a lot of great advice & insight. Upon graduating, I was privileged. I had known I could get a job, I could make some money, I could at least GET BY. Like Louis C.K. often reminds me, I am totally aware that I am an average (may be a stretch) looking Caucasian male from the United States of America.
I was also aware of how bad-ass the generations before mine were. I had seen the generations before swallow their pride, work relentlessly, and remain loyal to the company/family/team/club/whatever. It seemed like that generation, my parents included, knew how to work hard. It came second-nature to them. On the other side of the spectrum, I totally understand that I am a part of a generation of people that seem incapable of replicating the feats of generations past. Us “millenials” are prone to hurt feelings, and cyber protests (because that “re-tweet” will definitely make Putin listen).
Personally, I love working hard and I like competing in an environment in which “tough love” is used. I come from a family of guys (two older brothers), and was raised in a team-sports environment. However, I couldn’t (can’t) help that I wanted one thing above all.
“Human flourishing” is actually a more accurate translation of Eudaimonia. Also… who misses Face, from Nickelodeon!
Eudaimonia, also known as happiness to some non-Greek folks, is a pretty popular find. And in general, it’s totally up to you whether or not you find it.
For me, and seemingly a lot of people I know, it’s not that happiness is evasive. In order for something to be evasive I feel like a person should have some sort of an idea regarding how to find it, or even what “it” is. Happiness can be different for everyone, so how do you engage in a quest to find it? I simply don’t know what will make me happy. I click on all the self-help blogs and posts, like “Improve your attitude with 5 Sleep Tips” and “The Power of Saying No.”
Surprisingly, implementing these practices into your daily routine doesn’t help. Whodathunkit?
BACK TO THE STORY! After a few months of talking to potential employers, my friend Peacemaker (yes, that is actually his name) contacted me about helping him aid a friend’s education academy while they were being evaluated for an upcoming IPO. Being uncertain with where I wanted to be or what I wanted to be doing, I agreed to help my friend. In order to provide the aforementioned aid, I would need to relocate. So I abruptly decided to move just down the ocean to Shanghai, China…
What am I even doing? 