What If It Makes The Last Sound Be The Very Best Sound?

I told myself not to write about this - not because I didn't want to, but because I could write a novel in and of itself based on the topic.  Also, you know the subject matter is something big based not upon the fact of me using a contraction in a blog, but having such contained in the first sentence of said blog.

The last time I wrote anything about love was many years ago, before my first career, before forming a relatable identity, and much before I would consider myself to be a full-fledged adult.  Truthfully, I do have very strong ideas about love and they did not begin to develop until one of my professors made a statement about it many years ago which has stuck with me ever since.

Sure, my professor was obviously a religious person based upon the college I went to, but his definition was very straightforward and very secular.

 "Love is not a feeling, nor a choice.  Love is a decision."

Hold on just a minute, because that is in no way what we have been taught through novels, movies, television, or music - and the media is always right... Just as those viral posts on Facebook are based upon complete facts and truth.  Yeah, a bit like that.

Have you ever noticed how sometimes thoughts or actions begin to lose their personal  purpose over time?  What I mean by personal purpose is our own need or infatuation with anything we cling to. An example of this is when you hear a catchy pop song for the first time - while you know it is not the most awesome song ever written, the infatuation is there until you hear it continually in every form of media after becoming popular (Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know comes to mind).  The allure quickly fades because hearing that song over and over makes us tire of hearing it.  Love (or at least the culturally-skewed example most of us know) fits right into that category with Gotye and The Macarena.

I think we have somewhat ruined the concept of love by so freely expressing the word while losing the core of what it actually means.  The F-word is used in much the same way as you can say it in essentially any part of speech and it works for different reasons or definitions. Meaning, when we say we "love the smell of fall" none of us have a direct, cognitive relationship to the essence of fall; we enjoy its presence.  This is the same word I defined as a decision, but put forward in a different context.

Feeding off the same idea of enjoying the presence of someone else, we should be able to recognize the difference between someone we enjoy being around and someone we love.  This whole concept is tricky because we make it very complicated. The way in which we "love" an action, object, or presence is not the same way we love other people for the real basis of who they are.  When I say "love is a decision" what do I mean?

People tend to "fall in love" and I absolutely despise that phrase.  Anything you fall into, you can back out of somehow - think it over. Ask anyone who has been in a psychological struggle and they will tell you that any happening can be overcome or compromised to acceptance if the human will to survive and make a real change prevails.  "Falling" for someone opens the door for vulnerability and all but closes the door for security, while making for a false sense of it. I say this because I know too many people who tell someone they love them for outside purposes when they have no reason to say such a thing.  Guess what?  Saying you love someone with an ulterior motive or as a way to get something you want is ruining one of the most pure relation factors we can have as people - not to mention the effect doing so has on the innocent party.

"But love is a feeling, I get butterflies and happy."  Chocolate, the beach, and even NASCAR have the same effect on people, but you cannot compare the connection of human contact to that of objects or locations, right?  Emotions and feelings are their own entities, and so is love.  Love can have feelings and emotions within it, sure, but the basis of love is love itself. Confused yet?

We have all but lost sight of love and the commitment it entails to keep the true meaning of the word intact.  Saying you love someone involves real and complete commitment; a promise to never turn your back on someone and put your own needs aside for them, no matter what.  This is a decision we make because we want those we truly love to succeed in whatever capacity they need to while willingly sacrificing ourselves for their cause.  Maybe defining a characteristic such as this so mechanically sounds impersonal, but be assured real and honest love is the most personal and most incredible of human experiences.

Is love easy? No.

Is love fast? No.

Is love romantic?  There is nothing more so.

Love is based upon every bit of who someone is and the way in which they connect to you in every way - permanently.  Not just physically, aesthetically, emotionally, or relational - in EVERY way.

There are few people in this world I will go right out and say "I love you" to, but if I do, know that it is not taken lightly on my end.  If you say the same to me, I also expect the same level of realism and not passive abuse of the definition.  Over the years, I have learned to recognize the difference and in that, keep my circle very small.

Remember:

 -If you fall in love, you can fall right back out.

-If you really love someone, you are in it for life.

Hate is a strong word, but the misuse of "love" can be much more detrimental.

Grace and Peace,
-Drew

-Add me.  Stalk me.  Tweet me.  I really don't mind.-
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The lyrics in the title of this blog came from this song:

You Never Know Who Is Watching. Blog #100...

The blog you are reading is number one-hundred.  Over a period of less than six months, I have written one-hundred pieces of content consisting of various levels of quality, but nothing I would not be proud of any day of the week.  With this being a somewhat significant number for me, I have been debating what to do with this one and I still have no direct idea of what to write, so I will just go with it and see what happens.

I run.  Actually, from what some people have been asserting to, I should say I "still" run, because, as I mentioned in a previous blog, I run often and do not tell anyone.  This past Sunday I went for a run and ended up somewhere I did not expect to be, at least as far as distance is concerned.  Up here in the Atlanta suburbs, we have a "Greenway" of paved path and boardwalk which begins at the most distant northern suburb and travels nearly to Atlanta itself, all on top of a government sewer line which runs adjacent to a large creek (what else can you do with a sewer line?).  Going back to the story, on Sunday morning, as with many of my Sunday mornings, I decided to get on the Greenway and run south for a few miles, though I usually run north.  A few miles became a few more miles and I found myself about seven miles from my car, at a park, tired, sweaty, and thinking about how awful that journey back north was going to be.  

Generally, when I go for a run, I know where I am going, get to my stopping point and just turn around to head back, but this time I took a moment to sit down, pop my ear buds out and enjoy the sun for a bit outside of a pavilion (because sitting in the sun is the best thing for you to do while sweating).  Then he sat down beside me - George.  I was sitting there with my sunglasses on, looking at my phone, and George introduced himself to me.  He is seventy-three years old and rides a bicycle on the Greenway every Sunday morning, just as I run, but in the opposite direction to me.  Last Sunday, he went the opposite of his usual direction, just as I did, and we just so happened to meet at the same bench.  He and I talked for a bit and he told me about his wife passing away, and how Sundays had been their most important time together, so he had to take on a new hobby a few years ago to fill the lonely gap.  He quit smoking after she passed away and took up cycling because "It feels better than drinking."  After that, the conversation picked up on my end.

I told George about my sobriety commitment and he told me about his.  We talked about faith a little bit and I gave him a some background about my rocky past with the church, Seminary experience, and how running is now something that keeps me in check with God while allowing me to feel normal and fulfilled - being apart from the church.  Then he asked me about the notebooks in my backpack.

"Are you in school now, a writer, drawer - what?"

I told him about my blog and the basis of it being how my generation does not seem to understand the methods of effectively coping with the reality of the world.  How those within my age demographic for some reason feel entitled and as if the world owes them something and how so many of us have no idea what real commitment or real struggle actually is.

He then said something which will stick with me forever:

"Drew, I don't know you from anyone - you were just some young guy I sat next to because I was out of breath and needed to sit down somewhere.  I almost didn't because at my age, I was intimidated.  I saw a young guy sitting on a park bench with tattoos, long hair, stubble on his face, and muscular arms.  I just knew you weren't someone I wanted to be around, but you proved me wrong.  You, sir, are so intelligent, pleasant, and well-rounded that I feel horrible for thinking that way without speaking to you first."

Imagine that for a moment.  Imagine just what it feels like to have someone you had just met say something so sincere, yet entirely off-the-cuff to you.  I had no idea how to respond other than to thank him for his words.  Still, on Monday night, as I write this, my thoughts are still stuck in that moment, just a little.  George apparently hates computers, so he will never read this.  He also lives alone and only sees his family when they come from out of state for Christmas every other year.  I have no idea where he lives, and he never told me his last name.  I wanted to give him one of my cards, but that is something I do not carry when I run.  His response to my apology?

"I'm better off without your card.  Just wave if you see me on my bike sometime and I'll wave back.  You're doing big things and they'll get even bigger for you.  If I don't see you again, just remember that I told you so when you're on top of the world, Drew."

With that, he shook my hand and rode away.

Part of me wants to head south on my Sunday morning runs more often so that I can maybe wave at George or have another talk with him, but then I remembered we both take different directions on the Greenway - it was just that one day when we both happened to change directions and met in the middle.

I said all of this to you not as a way to boost myself or look like a saint.  This blog was simply meant to show you that being yourself every second of the day can have an impact in situations you may only have the chance to experience once.

You never know who is paying attention to you...

Grace and Peace,

-Drew

-Add me.  Stalk me.  Tweet me.  I really don't mind.-

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False Impressions Make You A Shallow Individual...

 I didn't post this to brag, but out of appreciation and
as an example of an honest, supportive friendship.

A false sense of assurance is something we have all experienced because, though we often make the choice to not believe it, having complete trust in anyone requires extensive work and commitment.

Where does this come from and when did trust become so hard to come by?

Concerning most actions and reactions in life, we are continually trapped in a downward spiral and this practice is no exception to the trend.

When we were children, we were taught to always be honest with people, never allow lies to surface for any reason, and allow others to have trust in us.  With time and age, we have all but lost this important character trait and realized by our teenage years that seemingly the only way to progress in life is to stretch the truth a bit here and there or at least distance ourselves from it.  

Why would I be so ignorant to believe having a trusting character was the standard?

It is not.

Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that putting trust into or having confidence in anyone takes more time than a few months, or even a few years.  Connections are important to any human bond, but we must be guarded enough to realize the majority of people in the world (often including ourselves) cannot be trusted. 

When we hear of solid excuses for dishonesty, the basic understanding automatically falls to one of two situations (with general consideration):

-Holding the business logic of "What they don't know won't hurt them.".  Within this standard, you tell  your potential human profit-makers anything necessary to close a deal or create a bond.  This often means creating a false impression of one's personality, interests, or skills.  Have you ever seen an embellished resume or someone who claims professional attributes they do not possess in real-time?  My point exactly - but it was a building process developed over centuries of dishonesty which has become a more accepted practice as time goes on.

-Holding the idea that we can lie as a way of sparing other's feelings or to hide something we are doing, will do, have done in the past, or hold an opinion of regarding a subject.  This means the notion of "sparing feelings" or emotions for the sake of personal benefit or as a method of "protecting" someone else is just unnecessary.  Allowing someone to believe a false idea does not help them because by doing this, we allow our trust to be entirely breached.  I would rather someone tell me the truth about everything than leave out details which lead me to believe a false idea.  There is no reason to tell people every detail of you life unless you just want to, but have enough respect for yourself and them that they do not take the false idea as truth.  

"If that's how he/she interprets what I said, it wasn't a lie."

Yes, it was.  By thinking such a thing, we have acknowledged the lie.

Congratulations.

Far too many of us spend far too much time attempting to cover our tracks on a daily basis and I cannot wrap my brain around why we have developed into such a process being the rule and honesty being the exception.  Every day, the majority of our population makes solid attempts to act like anyone other than who they really are or put other people in terrible situations for the sake of their own perceived happiness, but why?

Should we all be positive all the time?  

No.  

Those people who seem to act in such a way are often the more prominent of being less trustworthy and honest.  That probably sounds crazy, but hear me out.  Humans were given just as much processing ability for one emotion as any other and sometimes we need to express frustrations, anger and resentment in the same way we express happiness, joy, and positivity - this is called being mentally healthy.  By only allowing ourselves to use one set of emotions, we have to ask what happened to the others.  Emotions do not leave, but they can be suppressed and give a false identity to the person expressing them.  My thoughts on this can be flipped the other way as well by using the example of someone who seems to always be bitter and angry without expressing more positive thoughts.

Life and our own emotions, honesty, and relationships live in a balance and I will not complicate any of that buy throwing any religious or universal acceptance theory into the mix, because that makes the whole process complicated for no reason. 

Keeping it simple:

-We need honesty towards each other.

-We need a balance of our personalities.

-We need to be our own person.

-We need to invest in others while keeping our guard up.

-We must realize perfection is not possible.

Life would be much more simple if we would just keep honesty as a priority and keep from making exceptions.

Life would be much more enjoyable if we did not go into any situation with an expectation but identified our potential paths while leaving the toxic people and situations far behind us.

I have seen too many people become hurt by the false impressions expressed to them by the people they thought could be trusted the most and it both sickens and infuriates me.

To those who cannot seem to show themselves in honesty, hurting others in the process, I say this:

Stop.

Making.

Life.

Complicated.

Grace and Peace,

    -Drew

-Add me.  Stalk me.  Tweet me.  I really don't mind.-

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You're Making Excuses. Yes - You...

I took the notes for this blog while listening to this album.

Everything happens for a reason...  Wait, no.  I do not believe in that statement but I can rattle off a long list of people I know personally who readily cling to the idea.  Recently, after having an extremely long but completely engaged conversation with a few people at my friend's birthday party, this topic arose.  Being one of four people sitting on some deck chairs and each of the others not expecting to hear such a response from me, I was given the opportunity to explain myself a little bit better and decided to share it here as well.

Considering my upbringing and the actions I have trodden in my past, many people assume being a proponent of everything happening for a specific reason would be a shoe-in for me, yet, no.  The reason I do not agree with the statement at hand has to do with me personally feeling that saying such a thing is more of a cop-out for comfort or a vehicle to make an excuse for an action or consequence.  Thinking a bit more forwardly about this proposed mantra of life, and those who really do found beliefs in it makes me sound as if I am bitter or have some type of personal quarrel I am suppressing, but that is not the case in the least bit.  I simply take a similar, but at the same time, different approach to the idea.  

We are people, we live in the same space as all other people, and we are tested.  I am not making a reference to religion here, but my opinion can actually be applied to many religious beliefs if you would like to go after it in such a way - feel free.  The way I see individual progress is based upon the way in which we all handle various tests and how we react to them in our daily lives.  We are molded within our personalities by the actions and reactions surrounding us, as well as those of ourselves.  

Simple, right?  

Saying "everything happens for a reason" is easy when you are on top of your respective goals, but the reality and less accepting side of the idea is often ignored once the high of the moment wears away.  Taking the approach to the other side, failure can also use this thought process as an excuse to make us feel better when unexpected happenings take place.   When we think this way, the following result is usually a lack of trying because whatever we think controls our destiny did not want us to succeed.

One of the most dramatically mind-boggling ideas I have heard regularly throughout my existence is how people interpret the phrase: "You can do anything if you put your mind to it.".  While this statement is true overall, we have no guarantees of independent success to back any of it up.  

What do I mean by this?

Somewhere along the lines, the idea that we can do or be anything we want was skewed into:  "You can do anything if you put your mind to it, make a living at it, and live an easy, carefree life."  But the former is just not true because everything does not happen for a reason.  Everything happens because of the way we respond to life and the directions we allow ourselves to travel in.  

If you are happy, be well aware that your entire world could fall away from you in a split second so stay entirely motivated in everything you do to minimize the chances of such happening.

If you have a passion, devote every second you can to bettering it and never expect anything from those passions other than personal fulfillment as well as keeping your own happiness in check.  Never expect to make a living doing what you love, because few ever get the chance - if you are miserable because you cannot just do what you want all the time, re-evaluate your definition of "passion" and stop being an enabled brat.  

If your life seems to be taking sour turns or has fallen apart, make an investment in yourself and take the time to learn from the past, while educating yourself about what your next steps will be in the future.  Take a risk if you need to, but keep a clear mind and make your goals in life realistic building blocks to greater achievements.  

Everything does not happen for a reason.

Everything happens so you can reason with it.

Grace and Peace,

-Drew

-Add me.  Stalk me.  Tweet me.  I really don't mind.-

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Guess What? The World Is A Terrible Place...

I hope you all have the understanding of my European friend here...

Today I want to go a bit deeper into purpose, once again, but also address some of the negativity I receive for my outlook.  Apparently some who read this blog are taking my ideas in a direction that is entirely wrong and not at all in the spirit of what I try to convey.  My goal is to tell people about the concepts and life directions I believe in, while keeping a firm hold of what is real and what is perpetuated within our own minds.  The young Swiss lady who emailed me above?  She understands.

Constantly, we hear ideas along the lines of:  

"The world is a beautiful place, and everything is beautiful." 

No.  Just, no.  Let me work the reality of that statement back to planet earth for just a moment, if you will allow me to do so.  

"The earth has many beautiful objects and events residing within it, but the earth as a whole is a horrible, frightening, and unforgiving place."  

There, I fixed it - you are very welcome.  I really do not feel as if I am helping my case, but stick with me for at least another paragraph.

I still get emails from people who do not understand the message I am attempting to tell the world, which also seem to be increasing in frequency.  People send me messages saying how I must be a "right-winger" (I'm not), how I am a "religion pusher" (have you even read my blog?), or even a "disconnected hippie" (that one is just laughable), as well as a whole slew of other descriptors serving to make my late-night email reading much more entertaining.  Do I send them back nasty thoughts?  No way, but I do respond without being defensive because I am honestly thankful for anyone who reads my blogs and they are welcome to adopt any opinions they wish about me.  

Just like the above Tweet Hoodie Allen sent out when he released his newest EP a few weeks ago, I am thankful and humble for everyone who reads, but not at all disconnected from reality.  This is not something I do for money because I have another job I focus on for that.  This is something I believe in and love - not something I do to make a living. 

Stepping back into the whole idea of being disconnected, I will tell you the reality of my situation; the way I see the whole idea coming to surface.  There are those people we either know or have seen who make remarks, post comments online, or will not shut up about how wonderful of a place the world is.  Within certain, defined situations, yes, the world can be a very wonderful place - such as the moment when pieces to your puzzle of life seem to be fitting together for you.  However, with every high in life there is also a low point and with every triumph either precedes or proceeds a struggle.  Why?  We were guaranteed nothing in life; not even life itself.  From the moment we were brought into the earth, that gift could have been instantly removed from us before taking our first breath (and unfortunately sometimes is).   While speaking of instances such as this, why then do so many of us lump the more triumphant events in life together so readily with the world being a wonderful place?

The world is dangerous by design, because if none of us needed to push ourselves through life or look out for each other, we would all be extremely bored and wandering around naked (no, really, think about that).  Had the world been such a wonderful place by design, I would not own firearms for the sake of personal protection, divorce would not exist, people would not have chemical dependencies, nobody would die - ever. 

We cannot achieve a perfect world because perfection does not currently exist.  The best thing we can all do for ourselves is attempt to make good on our own actions and not play into the destructive life-games for ourselves.   

The end. 

There are VERY few people in the world I will call "beautiful", so if I do, it counts.

The world is frightening, but handle yourself appropriately by not adding to the destructiveness.

  Trust me, I am the last person you should refer to as "disconnected".

-Add me.  Stalk me.  Tweet me.  I really don't mind.-

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You Can't Hold Yourself Together. Why Should I Hold You Now?

A real friend is one who makes you a shameless "Chick Mix".

All of us - every single person born on this earth has a certain something about them nobody else has ever, nor will ever possess.  One attribute which rings as an ever present and ever constant truth is that we all have our own personalities; we all embrace a unique presence identified only to us as individuals.  Unless we make the choice to abandon that completely...

I really do believe that someone, at some point in time, no matter how briefly, has wanted to be just like someone else.  Having the argument of "I have always been my own person." is fine in our more mature, adult lives for many, but I really do believe everyone has had that want at some point in time.  Finding those desperate to fit into whatever environment they lusted after was an extremely easy task from the day I started preschool and did not begin to taper from its widespread presence until my years in college (but even then, it was not eliminated entirely).  Spending our youth trying to map out our direction based upon the decisions, personalities, and actions of others is a fairly normal behavior and can be filed away as a learning experience, but there is a problem with all of this - what about my generation in the current day?  What about the generation before me?  Did we all outgrow this?

Whoops?

Should anyone be surprised when I say the amount of people I knew in high school who ditched their friends and altered their personalities for someone they were dating was pretty significant?  Doubtful.  I saw this happen regularly and am fairly sure this practice continues to this day and will still be happening long after us Millennials are extinct.  Boy meets girl, they spend every open second together while neglecting their friends.  After a period of time, they split up, and both return to their old friends.  The system works (at least when you are between the ages of thirteen and eighteen) and the reason is because you are all stuck in the same place through the entire process.  When teenagers dissolve their romances, the same friends they had before are still around because they are all within in the same building, taking the same classes for most of the day, walking the same hallways, and sometimes living in the same neighborhoods.  Making nice with the offending party who broke the ties usually happens because, well, otherwise you are going to be walking through a big fog of awkward for the duration of your school years.

When I was in college, the same thing happened, but on a less-frequent scale, mostly because I spent practically no time with any of my classmates away from campus, which was probably a good thing.  Jumping forward a few years into my adult life, this cesspool of immaturity sprang right back up and I was brought to my wit's end about it on more than one occasion.  Not only Millennials, but Generation-X seemed to be falling back down into the mindset of living as teenagers, socially.  Maybe this is nothing new and has happened with every generation before us?  I have no idea, but we are acting like a bunch of complete idiots, regardless of your viewpoint. 

When I worked in my last field of employment, it was based around relationships and if those business relationships were not actual, they were intended to be believable.  Unfortunately, I also started applying this to my outside life by being involved with groups of people as an investment in friendship when I would have been better off keeping those people as passive acquaintances.  What I mean by all of this is no matter how close in age I was to these new "friends", they had all reverted to (or never grown out of) the relational mentalities of about a decade before, while I was growing into maturity, knowing full-well who the hell I was.  Do you want examples?

Go!

A person disappearing from a group and acting entirely different because they had "met someone" happened continually with my new group of friends, just as it did in high school - but there was a much different variable involved.  You see, as we grow and get past our years of formal education, most of us have figured out who we are and have begun living our lives accordingly, which is great, until we meet someone.  Much too often for me to take comfort in, Millennials alter themselves to better fit the mold of someone they are interested in, which changes who they have grown to be in the eyes of the other party within that relationship.  

This is stupid.

At some point, after much time and emotion becomes invested between these people, someone will have their actual personality come to the surface while catching the other completely off guard.  The break-up or divorce comes shortly after and those friends they had before - those with meshing personalities?  They are often no longer around at that point. 

The difference between acting like an immature high school student when considering your personality and the way some people alter it for the sake of someone else is that your high school friends are in the same vicinity day-in-day-out.  When you are an independent adult, however, you have no intended life restrictions and no inkling of a guarantee of re-connection with your former group because of this.  Why would you?  High school students usually live a pretty standard, fairly similar life to each other, but adults can make their own decisions and take individual directions in whatever way they please.  I have made a choice to write off essentially the entire group of friends I mentioned earlier, and many others beyond that group for the same reason.  The drama was not worth the relationship.

The question I must ask and would love to know the answer to is "Why?".  

I really want to know the reasons behind why I know a few people have had cold feet before their wedding day and heard even more stories about others in the same instance.

I want to know why independent adults always tend to assume they can alter their entire personalities to fit the lifestyle of someone else and expect everything to work out ideally.

I also want to know why adults assume long-standing friendships can be put on hold for romance and then be available to pick up the pieces compassionately at the push of a button.

Ideally, yes, a true friend will be there for someone who makes a bad decision or takes a consequential personality alteration, as I have been at times for some people - but playing the game becomes old quickly and the cord must be cut at some point.  Knowing the breakdown is personal and individual, but never comes as a complete surprise for anyone with half a conscience.

This all comes back to games and why I find dating to be so much of a waste for me.  I have no desire to have someone try to fit the mold of who they want me to think they are, and I have no desire for them to try to make me believe they have similar interest to me when they do not.  

Why would I want to spend months or possibly years attempting to figure out what game someone is playing with me or in what way they are attempting to impress me?  Years ago I gave up on trying to impress women, which is probably a big part of why I am still single.  A woman I was dating at one time said "My best friend is mad because I haven't seen him in two weeks."  That is something I was not at all in support of and told her to go see him because I refuse to be the reason someone else changes who they are.  Forget jealously - that guy existed before me.  Nobody's life is going to be altered that way on account of me.

Life-change is so huge, but we take the idea so lightly in the name of romance.  

Changing my life is not based around relationships, because successful relationships fit inside of a person's already healthy personal life.   Creating drama in a life-facet when everything else is going well for the sake of another person is childish and a direct path to complete, relational failure.  

Within the past year, I have changed my own life and completely altered it out of necessity.  I gave up alcohol and removed the enablers who followed it.  So far, that has very nearly been the best decision I have made - and in one week, I will have spent a year away from it entirely.
See?  Sometimes the change is good for the right reasons.

Making a change for someone else to approve of you is a bad decision.

Making anyone believe you are something other than yourself is a bad decision.

Pushing aside anyone who has done nothing but support you is probably the dumbest decision you can make.

Just this one time, I will tell you to be like me in this one way:

Surround yourself only with those who care about you as much as you care about them.

Do not compromise your personality or lifestyle for anyone.
I am not afraid to, and will verbally call you out as a fake.     

Grace and Peace,

    -Drew

-Add me.  Follow me.  Tweet me.  I really don't mind.-

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The lyrics in the title of this blog came from this song:

This Is For My Instagram Models...

Here we are, back to talking about the selective ways in which we educate ourselves.  Are you ready?  No matter, because I am going to jump right in regardless.

When we watch movies or television shows based around either non-fiction or plausible fiction stories the theme of "street smarts" pops up fairly often as part of the plot, either directly or indirectly.  You see, before we were all connected to anything and everything through technology, most people did not go to college, nor graduate high school if I am being real.  People living a few generations ago were required to think for themselves and learn whatever it was they were interested in from the ground up, either as a means of making a living or developing their hobbies.  These people carved their own ways for the most part and when they pushed as far as their individual intelligence, apprenticeships, and self-education would take them, more formal education was sought out.

Just like anything else, there were exceptions and some instances of those graduating from their local, small town schools going to large universities, but not often.  Yet, amazingly, some of those who made the decision to trudge along on their own accord were some of the most innovative and most willing to take on a struggle as a means to figure out their own purpose in life.  Today, we are told to go to four-year schools and only to use community colleges as a stepping stone to get to that place.  You have no idea what you want to do with your life?  No clue?  Go to college anyway because you can just pay large sums of money for tuition and pointless classes until you figure that out.  

What?  

Oh, and tech school...  Tech school was always presented to me as a last-resort option.  Meaning, if you could not make the mark in a four-year school, you could always fall back on a tech school.  These are not ideas that I believe personally, but are the ideas that were indirectly shown to me as I was growing up.  My parents would be happy with any feasible direction I happened to take in life, so I never heard this from them, but I did from almost every other adult I met.  

And I ended up going to college.

Formal education is a great thing, and if you have set a goal in your mind you cannot attain without that degree, go right ahead and chase after while I back your decision to do so.  The problem is that most of my generation has been taught the only way to success is brought about with a reputable degree.  How is this so when some of the most wealthy, successful, innovative, and creative people in the world are college dropouts?  Simply put, we are not challenged enough to figure out who we are and what goals to set for ourselves during the most impressionable years of our lives.  

This is why I admire some European countries so much for their career training.  Most high schools in America do one thing:  prepare students for college or university.  Students who go to public schools are required to attend whatever school is within their district, with few exceptions.  This can make the education system suffer for lack of certain accountability aspects and I am a product of this because when I was sixteen years old, I paid off my geometry teacher to pass me (really, I did) because that was the one subject I struggled with; many of my friends did the same exact thing in other classes.  

Why?  

Because there are just as many passionate teachers out there as uninterested teachers.  The teacher I paid off told our class that she was only teaching to pay for her master's degree, essentially stating she did not care about what she was doing.  Some European countries make their public schools compete for their enrollment.  

What?

There exists a land where many, smaller, government-funded schools are scattered around, each specializing in a vocation or varying facets of prerequisite education.  Students must apply to the school of their choice and if accepted, will be learning primarily the subjects they are most interested in.  These schools can be a significant distance from their home, but if the student makes the choice of attending, getting to their classes on time lies upon them.  This process makes the schools and their educators compete for more students, therefore focusing on a more quality education. 

I used a word in the last paragraph: "vocation" which is often ignored in America because having a vocation is only good for poor, stupid, or lazy people;  at least that is what I was clandestinely taught growing up since real, successful people had "careers".  

As a result of this awesome system, we end up with students going to college who would be better-suited to explore their own ventures and build their own successful future - but they were taught not to.

We have inventive and insightful minds full of brilliance and they were told to be accountants.

I know people who obtained a four-year degree which ended up restricting them to desk work because they were told that was the best way to live their life.

  Still, there are others who have much to offer the world but lack enough time to make a real devotion to their goals.

So, what am I trying to say?

If your chosen career path requires college, by all means, go for it!

If you have no idea what you want to do with your life, take a year or two to think that over.

Everyone needs a stable job or career as well as a hobby.  

If your hobby becomes your job, great, but if not, explore other opportunities and love your hobby no less because of that.

Not having a degree makes you no less of a person.

---

Not having a devoted drive, makes you a worthless person.

Not pushing yourself to achieve your goals makes you a lazy person.

Settling for a lifestyle you hate is a waste of life.

Settling for an irresponsible lifestyle is a waste of time.

Talking about big things is not the same as doing big things.

Stay humble.

Stay yourself.

Grace and Peace,

    -Drew

-Add me.  Stalk me.  Tweet me.  I really don't mind.-

Personal Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/drew.silvers

Blog Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/drewcoustic

Email:  drewcoustic@gmail.com

Twitter:  @JDrewSilvers

Instagram:  http://www.instagram.com/jdrewsilvers

The lyrics in the title of this blog came from this song: