Well....the day that I never thought would come is approaching quickly...my whole life has been dedicated to this one moment, and now it's about to be here. I graduate from college in about 3 weeks...and wtf comes next now?! While I do understand that college is really a government gimmick, a way to control the youth and shackle them to years worth of debt...I was fortunate enough to have the hard work I put in in high-school pay off and get a college education for free. I was never really interested in the college scene, but I enjoy learning and being forced to attend classes is a good way to gain knowledge when I was taking classes that interested me, although I believe learning happens in every moment of your life if you're paying close enough attention. But here's where the problem arises, while I'm about to graduate with a B.S in Environmental Studies which I did enjoy obtaining (as in the partying I did to either celebrate or ease the stress away from classes), what the hell do I do now?! At the age of 22, the sheepish thing for me to do would be utilize my degree in some corporate America job mindlessly following protocol and having my life slip away without doing much about it. Obviously that's not what I want, but unfortunately, we are here in this material world, dominated by material things, in which you need material money to acquire. While I understand some are going to read that and disagree by saying you don't need money or material things, you actually do. And here's why:
In this life, in seeking personal fulfillment and happiness, you need to be centered with yourself and make a positive impact on those around you by doing what you love. If you have an amazing mind and service to provide to the world, is anyone going to listen or care about what you have to say if you don't have money or a platform to spread what you have to give? Chances are, no, unfortunately. In this material life, material things are what make you seem successful and respectable, and you acquire material things with money. If you still don't agree with me that material success is necessary for being able to have a positive impact on society, look at it from these different perspectives...take this for example, you are walking around by yourself in a city you've never been to before looking for a cafe you are supposed to meet your friend at. You're on the right track from following google maps on your smartphone when suddenly it dies. You keep walking in the direction you think is right until you don't know where to go next. You're standing on the corner of an intersection debating with yourself which way you should go when you decide that you need to ask someone for directions. You have two options, one is a homeless man in dirty clothing sitting on the sidewalk minding his own business, while the other is a gentleman in a tailored suit with a Rolex scrolling though his emails on his tablet. Who are you going to ask for directions? Both the homeless man and the business man have the same knowledge of the town, assuming they both live there and frequent the area often, but my guess is you would ask the business man because of how he looks. You get the impression that he's smart and knows the answer to your question just based off the material things he has. While the homeless man may even know better than the businessman on how to get to the cafe you're searching for since he walks the streets everyday, you don't trust him and make the assumption he can't help you based on how he looks and the few material things he posses. See where I'm going with this? Now let's think about this, say you're sitting in your living room with a few friends talking about goals and things you'd like to accomplish in the next 5 years, you have always dreamed of starting a program for foster kids in the community to get involved with a community garden to make them feel welcomed and like they have a family within the community. Great idea, but how are you going to accomplish this with no money? You can always ask someone else for money, but are they going to trust you with it if you have no material items/respectability to show your measure of success in handling money properly? Probably not...okay you get the picture now.
So back to my problem of being the black sheep...how do I go about being successful in this material world, create a positive impact on society, and avoid conforming to government control? A lot of us, especially if you've stuck with me this far, are free thinkers and have at least an inkling of how this world really works behind the scenes...or more importantly in our heads, so you're probably facing similar problems as I am. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. What I want is to keep bartending, take whatever time I want off, and travel the world as I please while trying to save the planet while I'm at it. What I should do, is start my career and work towards the 6 figure salary I'm envisioning for my future. But what I need to do is find the happy medium between the two. In the coming weeks I'll be taking the steps necessary to set up the rest of my future in finding the happy medium between being a peace loving hippie and a ballin' billionaire- I call this leveling up in life.
Please share your thoughts with me on this matter and any similar problems you are facing yourself! Hope you're all enjoying this wonderful crazy thing we call life!
