The Golden Age of Adulthood

I 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.

Life, Career, DreamsKendall CherryJuly 26, 2015Featured, ArchiveComment

The Making of Milestones

I 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?

Career, Dreams, LifeAlly WillisJuly 19, 2015Featured, ArchiveComment

On Finding Your Calling

When 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.

Life, Career, DreamsEmily BlasikJune 28, 2015Featured, ArchiveComment

And That Has Made All The Difference

“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is a poem that I have heard at several graduations and events as a motivational addition, often including the lines from the last stanza: “two roads diverged in a wood, and I / I took the one less traveled by / and that has made all the difference.”

When I first heard this poem, I was completely oblivious (like always) to the true meaning of it. I thought: “what an amazing message: you should choose to be different from everybody else, I like, totally get it!” It wasn’t until later that I realized that I’m an English major who can’t understand poetry, and it’s tragic.

Life, DreamsAlyssa VottoJune 18, 2015Featured, ArchiveComment

Rainy Day Revelations

With 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.

Life, Career, Dreams, TravelAlly WillisJune 14, 2015Featured, ArchiveComment

True to Your Heart

Why 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.

Graduation, Dreams, CareerKaitlyn BundrickJune 8, 2015Comment

Murphy's Law: What Can Happen, Will Happen

As 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.

Life, Dreams, CareerChristina BergerMay 27, 2015Featured, ArchiveComment

I Want to Live

“How vain to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”

My friend presented this Thoreau quote to me one evening as we sat at a sparsely-populated bar waiting for a band to go on, discussing life and the inevitable question of what exactly it is that we want to do with it.

Dreams, Career, LifeAlly WillisMay 3, 2015Comment

Don't Quit Your Daydream, Part II

You see, in my day to day life I don’t get to create much. My job currently consists of polishing memos or creating communication maps. I like what I do and the people I work with, but I don’t get that hands-on feeling of diving into a project heart first… that feeling of falling asleep next to your project because you can’t rest until it’s right, eventually waking up the next morning with paint all over your hands and shouting “Eureka!” because you know what it’s missing to make it perfect. Though I don’t get that in my 9 to 5, I’ve been determined to find it again somehow. I can’t begin to express how excited I am to start learning and creating, but most of all, I’m keeping my motto alive, “Don’t quit your daydream.”

DreamsJuliette KibodeauxApril 19, 2015Comment

What Is Success?

The funniest part is that I used to have a plan and would constantly stress about this "plan." I was going to be some badass executive or politician. I spent my college career trying to live up to everyone's expectations of me and my future. I put so much pressure on myself to make it seem like I had my shit together all the time. I needed to be successful...whatever that means.

Career, DreamsEmily YoungMarch 25, 2015FeaturedComment

The Dream Worth Chasing

I knew that living at home would be temporary, so I dedicated myself to finding a job at a fashion magazine in NYC. I applied to publication after publication every day for weeks. But after a couple months of receiving rejection emails, I realized that maybe moving to the Big Apple wasn’t meant to be for me. So, I began looking for opportunities at companies in the Midwest and after six months of searching, I accepted a copywriter position at a jewelry company in suburban Kansas.

Dreams, CareerMegan RauMarch 11, 2015FeaturedComment

Pursuing Dreams Down The Road Not Taken

I graduated from college nearly a month ago. Up until about a week before graduation, I had a somewhat solid path laid out before me. I would be moving to Dallas to begin a full-time, well-paid internship with a thriving company that would not only provide me with a wonderful learning opportunity, but also some financial stability.

Career, DreamsAlly WillisJanuary 4, 2015Comment

Through the Mist: A Crash Course in Getting to Know Yourself

If you find yourself getting lost in life after graduation (and all of the possibilities that are out there for your career or calling), look no further. Here’s how to get to know the real you and figure out what you were meant to be doing.

Career, DreamsKendall CherryDecember 28, 2014 Comment

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