“What are the most significant challenges or obstacles you have faced during training?”
My supervisor asked me this question during the seventh and last week of the training process for my very first job. Was it running on no sleep? Brain overload? Being away from my friends and support system?
“A lack of confidence.”
Read MoreIt’s taken a bit of adjustment, but mornings have now become my favorite time of the day. There’s just something innocently hopeful about the quiet light of morning that I’ve come to fully appreciate.
If I can become a morning person, anyone can. Here are 4 tips for changing your mindset from "mornings are of the devil" to "I LOVE MORNINGS!"
Read Morell my life I have watched other people use this strange superpower that I just didn't possess.
I remember an instance when I was ten years old and had friends who wanted to go to the mall. But my family was going to lunch. It was such a dilemma that I cried! I literally stood there crying, unable to choose between the two. I couldn't bear the thought of having to tell either my friends or my family “no.” I didn't want to disappoint anyone.
Fast forward to my junior year of college: I was working three jobs, two of which I was commuting an hour for three times a week for minimal pay. I was exhausted.
Read MoreI've written three different posts this past week alone, all trying - and failing - to communicate what I've been experiencing this month. Every critique I've had from people has been this: You're rambling. What's the point?
So here's the point: I don't know my point anymore.
"What's your dream job?" a friend asked me on afternoon over half-priced margaritas.
I didn't have an answer for him.
Read MoreI always imagined what it would be like to be 23 when I was younger. The Golden Age of Adulthood, you could call it.
I pictured myself living in a big city, in the heart of downtown, drinking lattes in little cafés on my Sunday mornings. I saw myself being kissed goodnight on a stoop next to a trash can that stayed on the sidewalk. I would walk through an office building made entirely of glass, Devil Wears Prada style, in my high heels and pencil skirt, on the brink of missing my morning meeting, if only because my morning cup of joe I drank on my building’s rooftop captured my heart for a little too long.
Read MoreLet’s all take a step back down memory lane of what was our lives just a few short months ago, shall we? In college you are blessed and cursed with being constantly surrounded by friends: living with them, sharing the same classes, working with them and enjoying Friday night shenanigans together. We are just floating along on a social high and maybe even yearning for some alone time.
Fast forward to present day: My daily social interactions consist of yelling at other Dallas drivers on my hour-long commute, chatting with my co-workers in the office (S/O to the cube), hanging out with my family when I return home around 5 pm each evening, and nightly snuggles with my cat who I’m fairly certain suffers from severe attachment disorder.
I’ll be completely honest: I have been throwing quite the pity party for myself.
Read MoreI cried in the backseat of an Uber the other night.
Somehow our conversation steered into the dangerously-open territory of life stories, wherein our driver shared with us that her husband of 21 years had just left her.
"Your 40s are the roughest," she explained.
"Our 20s don't seem much better," I responded. "What about your 30s?"
"You'll spend most of it sacrificing everything for your kids and husband who will later get bored of you and leave. It'll be somewhat happy."
So this is life, then?
Read MoreI have many friends who recently graduated and have taken jobs, internships and opportunities far from home. I, on the other hand, recently accepted a job working in a kindergarten classroom as an assistant at a private school in my Louisiana hometown, Shreveport.
I have to be honest, though: I’ve been struggling lately with wondering if it was the right decision.
Not because I don’t think I’ll like what I’ll be doing. Not because it’s one of the best schools in this area. Not because the people who work here seem to be professional, helpful and wonderful people whom I can’t wait to work with. No, it’s none of those things.
Really, it’s because I’m afraid of getting stuck.
Read MoreThis is it. You’re done with school. Now is the perfect opportunity to get the wild hairs out of your system before you get settled into a typical "adult" routine.
There are a lot of outlets for young people to gain real-world experience in non-traditional ways after college, like teaching abroad, becoming an au pair, or volunteering across the world.
I took the teach abroad route for my first post-grad adventure, and you don’t have to have any teaching experience to be accepted. You generally only need a four-year degree from an accredited university and speak English as your native language.
Read MoreWhen I was in elementary school, I desperately wanted to be a teacher. For hours on end, I would stand in front of my four-legged whiteboard easel, writing out various math problems for my imaginary students to solve. When friends came over to play, they'd sit at my feet with a pile of coloring books and puzzles, ignoring my every attempt to teach them the vocabulary word of the day. To put it bluntly, I was a nerd. The kid who begged their parents for a pair of reading glasses and read the Children's Dictionary for fun. (I still remember the first word on Page 1—aardvark—because I was fascinated by its ridiculous double-A spelling. Why not just name it an ardvark?)
I might have been a bit eccentric as a kid, but by the time I was ten, I had found my calling.
At least, for a little while.
Read MoreI accepted my first real job three months before I graduated college – way before the majority of my peers even started looking. My first reaction? I’m employed! In your face, statistics.
My yearlong position will involve traveling about every six days and working with college women. I was ecstatic for the opportunity to work for a value-based company, spend a year traveling across the United States and use my skills to make a difference.
As time passed and my start date grew closer, I began to second-guess everything about the job I accepted months earlier.
Read MoreWith the new Mumford and Sons album streaming through my ears (and still desperately wishing everyone was as passionate about this album as I am), I meandered through tree-shaded London streets, alone with my wandering thoughts in a city of seven million.
I returned to sit beneath a tree – my tree – on Primrose Hill, the city unchanged before me as the spring breeze carried shadows across the blooming city.
One year before, I had sat beneath this very same tree, the same skyline set within my eye line, wearily contemplating my “what’s next” after I returned home to the prospects of life post-graduation. Yet here I was - an entire year between that moment and this one - just as in the dark about what I’m doing with my life as I was then.
Read MoreWhy is it so hard to follow your heart? Is it just me? Surely not.
We hear people telling us all the time to follow our hearts. I mean, I grew up listening to the lyrics of 98 degrees and the great Stevie Wonder from the Disney classic Mulan.
The older I get, the more I realize that Stevie has left me with a difficult task.
Read MoreAs a twenty-something who is moderately to severely active on (read: addicted to) social media, I’m overwhelmed daily as I scroll through infinite purportedly uplifting articles about my generation: “20 Reasons Why Your 20s are the Best Years of Your Life,” “37 Ways to Turn Into Beyoncé” or “12 Random Quotes by Taylor Swift with Accompanying Pictures That Will Make You Wish You Were Her BFFL.”
On the flipside, I’ve also seen blog posts claiming that your 20s are actually required to suck, like it’s some unwritten rite of passage. Like if those years don’t make you want to shave your head Britney-style, you aren’t doing them right.
C’mon.
Read MoreFive months out of college, I’ve discovered that the triangle has now shifted to work, sleep and work. There are just not enough hours in a day. For the first time in my life, time itself has become my scarcest resource.
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