This video was shot back in my senior year at Georgia College. I'm sharing it this week because it reminds me of what I was thankful for at the time: a professor/academic advisor who was willing to let me carry a segment with no on-camera track record and peers who helped make it possible when the bit could've been quickly shot down.
Those individuals were a big help on this project and would be throughout my college career, but I'm most thankful for something I learned in the process that led to what you see in the video. It meant a lot to me in college and still carries weight today- the value of "The Process" in achieving a goal.
This week I did a guest spot on the Georgia College Connections: Student Media Roundtable audio show. I stayed on for the broadcast's first segment, a discussion on the protests at the University of Missouri led by Concerned Student 1950. You can listen to the full show using the player above. I was happy to sprinkle in a few words with some of GC's current students, who gave awesome responses. You can hear me at 3:42, 15:00, and 21:45. We hit a few different talking points in a brief amount of time, so here's more insight into the thoughts and stories I shared on the show.
I recently interviewed my co-workers about their first job experiences. The results were varied and as I expected, pretty entertaining. You can check out their responses (and my hosting skills in 2015) in the above video.
Ever since taking my first job, I've always wanted to win the trade with work. My battle isn't with a particular company or boss, but the idea of work- spending up to 60 hours a week of your time performing tasks that make other people money in exchange for a little bit of scratch for yourself.
In light of this, I don't believe in"dream jobs". There are some that are better than others, but the moment you allow someone to give you money for any task, you're largely beholden to their wishes if you want to get your end of the bargain met.
It's a transaction, plain and simple, but far too often we end up giving up a lot while not getting as much in return. We willingly exchange our time and skills but sometimes also sacrifice our health and relationships to make sure the deal goes through.
I'm not a veteran of the post-college "real world" yet but I've been around long enough to know the basics: your salary isn't high enough, the weekend isn't long enough and there's never enough time.
I would need a time machine to fix the salary problem (by changing majors... a bad engineer is still an engineer), and I don't think the country will ever switch to my proposed "Work Two, Off Five" weekly plan. Here are a few tricks I use to steal as much time from what I have to do so I can put more into what I like to do.
Between 1991-1996 LaFace Records, its top artists and the city it called home all went through major transitions. Each sprung up from obscurity and quickly announced grand intentions. TLC went from casting a call pitch to a world tour, Atlanta bid for hosting rights to the 1996 Olympics and Kenneth Edmonds and LA Reid graduated from producing singles to running a label.
The hope of impending change is deceitful. At the start we have idealistic thoughts of what the other side is like. We see the freedom of driving but not the burden of buying gas, the appeal of being in shape minus the sacrifice of a new diet and the perks of a raise without the weight of added job responsibilities. After five years and millions of records sold, TLC was was about to feel the backlash of success but none its advantages.
It's finally fall! Time for dirt pumpkin flavored everything, 4-hour long playoff baseball games and fresh new tv shows.
Yep- this year's fall television premieres are here and they're ... mostly underwhelming. Here are some new ideas for old shows that would make this fall legendary.
Atlanta in 2015 is characterized by hipster hangouts and yuppie neighborhoods that each present a whitewashed view of the city. "Before the Beltline" will highlight the people, places and cultural happenings that made Atlanta the place to be before Yelp reviews, Buzzfeed articles and "The Walking Dead" arrived late to the party.
By 1994, LaFace Records established itself as a big time player in urban music. Their roster was top heavy with two acts, TLC and Toni Braxton, that appealed to both the mainstream and R&B's core audience. They sold lots of records, won plenty of awards and made (or in TLC's case, should've made) a bunch of money.
Carving a niche in R&B is like investing in established stock: you build enough assets to buy in, play it tight and make steady dollars. The genre had been around forever and showed no signs of fading as LaFace's vocalists took their place atop the business.
Who says a top five list is only for hip-hop? Top 5 is a list that ranks the best of any and all.
Today, children of the 1990s are in a state of euphoria when surfing the worldwide web. 90s culture is tight again. Blog posts and click bait lists are loaded with our memories of Nickelodeon cartoons, Super Nintendo/SEGA Genesis games and the unhealthy snacks our parents gave us before anyone cared knew better.
Reliving Doug, Donkey Kong and Dunkaroos is fun, but this post is dedicated to the greatest 90s throwback of them all, one that united all- sports fans and artsy types, slobs and fashionistas, suburbanites and city dwellers with a single product- the Starter jacket.
Atlanta in 2015 is characterized by hipster hangouts and yuppie neighborhoods that each present a whitewashed view of the city. "Before the Beltline" will highlight the people, places and cultural happenings that made Atlanta the place to be before Yelp reviews, Buzzfeed articles and "The Walking Dead" arrived late to the party.
If you were alive and cool in the 90s, there's a good chance you owned a CD/ cassette tape stamped with the script logo of LaFace Records. Founded by LA Reid and singer Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, the label introduced us to TLC, Toni Braxton, Outkast and Usher was the first major R&B/Hip-Hop label to operate out of Atlanta.
Prior to the post-Olympics blitz that brought about extra traffic and gentrified in-town living, LaFace's producers and talent were collectively proud and original, the eternal gatekeepers of the next big thing. This is a timeline of the label's early years.
A good take from Diverse Education: C. Emmanuel Little writes that some black men wear dress attire because we want to do so. In the face of the recent Mashable article about black men wearing suits to avoiding getting shot (who really thinks that works?) , Little informs readers of something that I can identify with well: appearance doesn't grant you immunity from reality:
"The painful truth is that one can dress like Fonzworth Bentley, write like Toni Morrison, and speak with erudition of Michael Eric Dyson and still die from simply being Black and breathing. You can never be “perfect” enough. Being among the best dressed on campus didn’t stop a tall Black male colleague of mine at another institution from being suspected by campus police of being an escaped inmate, despite being a tenured faculty member. Neither my suit nor my degrees saved me from being once assumed too incompetent to have written a program report myself. (Note: I did.)"
During my time on a college campus, both as a student and a professional, I had several "he can talk?!" moments- peers or colleagues seeming amazed that I could not only muster up competence that was on par with their abilities. When I went beyond average, the excuses started to pour in. The most glaring example of this mindset was when, during an open discussion in class, another student calmly explained that "the black students were admitted with lower test scores and GPAs". In her mind, us sitting together at the same school and in the same class could only be explained by a glitch in the system. No suit this side of Steve Harvey could've changed her mind about how we ended up at the same school.
I'm not the black guy from the Mashable article; I run a sponge twist through my high top fade and seldom wear a tie if I don't have to. That doesn't make me a threat, nor a racist-fighting rebel. Just someone who likes to dress the way they want to, independent from the insecurities of complete strangers.
It's easy for me to link every major point of growth or change in my life to the music I had on my CD player/iPod/phone at some point. The content of the lyrics and personas of the artists behind them reflected who I was (or wanted to be) at the time, and also foreshadowed who I was about to become. These are the albums that defined the peaks and turmoil that have shaped my worldview and taught me several lessons along the way.
Part 3
Lecrae, Anomaly (2014)
I’m just a broken instrument in the hands of the Greatest/ So if the notes are off it’s ‘cause I ain’t nothin’ to play with
-Broken, Track 14
"We have all felt that hunger to be known, meaningful, and have purpose. Sometimes we allow social circles, teams, jobs, money, or possessions to define that purpose for us. This is an ode to not allowing our acceptance by others to give us meaning."
-Lecrae
Music transcends the limits of time and space, transporting you into a moment more vividly than a lucid dream or old photo ever could. When I listen to Lecrae's Anomaly, I'm taken back to the drivers seat in my company '08 Chevy Impala, where I sit at a red light, head in my lap and gasping for air as the reality of every bad decision I'd made over two years comes to a turbulent head.
After graduation, some of my friends got jobs. I got locked up.
No, I wasn't actually behind bars. My prison was actually an office, furnished with a 5x8 cubicle that served as a metaphorical jail cell. In about 15 months I'd gone from dapping up my favorite rappers to dodging two-faced middle managers. I watched people younger than me find great internships and jobs while I remained in an unfulfilling job, a living cautionary tale that motivated them to succeed and not end up like me. All the good work I'd done in college didn't seem to lead me anywhere. I was stuck in a dream-killing job with no idea how I got there or how to escape.
Adding to my misery were peers who overcame underemployment and launched into great careers. Now everyone (seemingly) was doing better than me. If ever I felt optimistic enough to believe otherwise, every "I got the job!" update on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin reminded me of just how wrong I was.
Whereas rap was once a performance enhancer- the added boost I needed to kill a radio spot or write a bomb paper- it was now turning into another reminder of my failures. All the artists I felt shared my story weren't actually like me at all. They were true success stories- more like the lucky kids from my graduating class who had good jobs in place the moment they left campus- unlike me, the one left smiling through interviews for $8/hour retail gigs.
Outkast already had three albums out by age 21. Kanye didn't even need to waste time finishing school before making it big. I wondered how I'd fallen so far behind.
The turmoil in my professional life spilled over into my personal life. When you do well in college, it's easy to have an optimistic outlook on life: you're young, eager and ignorant to all the struggles of adulthood. However, I learned that the true test of relationships comes when you're not feeling like the best and all your expectations of yourself and your life go unmet.
My personal life wasn't improving either. I learned that when school days are over, relationships you thought were monuments to true love get exposed as facades masking selfish pursuit. Those are then replaced with new ones that are built on an unstable foundation. These new people are meant to replace your college bae who you supposedly only clicked with because you were both young, immature and in the same place at the same time.
These new, even more complicated "grown up" relationships wash out too. At that point you discover the challenge of post college singleness. There's no new face to discover in the dining hall or campus party, just a lot of dull nights with alcohol, Netflix and the company of all your flaws.
When it all falls down, you grab on to the only thing that's left: hope. I'd never found true hope through music until I listened to Lecrae's Anomaly.
I was reintroduced to Christian rap around my senior year of college. In between sessions of Teflon Don and Drake's So Far Gone, I sampled music from Christian artists like Lecrae and Trip Lee, expecting it to sound wack like the faith based hip-hop I remembered from Sunday school. I was surprised to discover that a few dudes learned how to praise Jesus without sounding corny. What made this music even better was that they didn't only quote scripture (nobody is good enough to make King James' "thous" and "the's" sound cool). It talked about real-life-- i.e. common sin-- in a way that didn't leave me feeling judged. Amazing grace. Anomaly felt like finding a perfect pair of jeans after years of buying knock offs that never quite fit. It hit on on every trial I'd experienced in my post-college slump. Regrets (as talked about on Wish) made coping with a job I hated really hard. Monday mornings were especially tough, as I'd stare off into space at my desk wondering "what if I'd taken that awesome job that I thought didn't pay enough?" or "what if I just tried to intern for that company I really wanted to work with?".
Feelings of remorse then led to doubt (Fear) about whether or not I was ever bound for anything significant. I couldn't find a reason to believe otherwise. Every story I came across of someone who'd made it big included an impossible to reach caveat- a surprise benefactor or networking opportunity at a bar that sounded more the result of dumb luck rather than the fruit of persistence.
At my lowest point and completely defeated, I realized that no job, relationship or sum of money could save me (Broken); my only salvation was through the One who controls and creates it all.
If Anamoly were crafted like one of those movies that ends on a somber note, I wouldn't have liked it as much. Fortunately, in Messengers, Lecrae shines the proverbial white light after experiencing death from an imperfect past. It's a great way to end an hour long album, but also helped me reconcile years of personal letdown.
I looked to music for self discovery, hoping that what I learned would allow for steady travels through my teens and into adulthood. Several detours led me to Anomaly, and I finally found the guide map I needed all along.
"However, the bad press didn't rock the way shoppers planned to buy, according to the survey. Seventy percent of consumers surveyed said they would consider shopping at Amazon next time they wanted to make a purchase from a retail store..."
I lasted years in a destructive office culture where tattling and favoritism were the fruits of incompetence at the highest level. The "never off the clock" culture found at Amazon is close to what was happening at my old job. It was an often miserable experience that negatively impacted my mental well being and worldview.
The staff of Amazon are suffering greatly. It isn't blood diamond level guilt, but knowing that the sweet deal you got on that new Roku came at the cost of another human's happiness is tough to bear.
Will I demonstrate a stance against toxic work environments by not shopping Amazon? As I type from my heavily discounted MacBook Pro I say, brothers, that I know you'll get to the mountain top but I probably won't make it there with you.
My last job didn't pay me enough to afford retail price.
Here's a quick take on Straight Outta Compton from fellow Georgia College alum Daniel Troutman. Like a lot of people, has conflicting thoughts about whether to see the N.W.A. biopic in theaters. Here's an excerpt:
Although they may not have intended it, their music has been used by record labels to create a globally popular genre of music that perpetuates harmful Black stereotypes, endorses community violence, crime, drugs, and assault on women.
I take pride in saying I knew about Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren, Eazy E and DJ Yella before the recent rush of nostalgia. N.W.A. first made my playlist back in '05. I was a high school junior in search of new music to download and stumbled on their catalog. After hours of listening and dozens of illegal downloads (F*** The Police, right?) I could call out the lyrics to the mainstream hits like Express Yourself as well as some of the lesser known, more explicit ones like Gangsta Gangsta and Eazy Duz It. These same tracks are played throughout Compton, while the part of their catalog that got them them well deserved criticism (A B**** Iz A B****) is mostly absent. F. Gary Gray's 2 1/2 hour feature played it safe; let the movie tell it, these guys were thugs who had only good intentions.
Knowing that Gray was a friend of Cube, I didn't expect much else. As a long time fan, I knew the bad stuff before the Compton's premiere. I read about Dr. Dre beating up Dee Barnes. I knew Eazy E's rhymes were mostly about shooting people who weren't crooked cops and having "bitches galore". Listening to the unedited version of the album Straight Outta Compton was uncomfortable the first time I heard it and still is today.
I don't practice or condone violence against women, verbal or physical. I don't think there's any way to make it OK for an artist to do so in real life or in a song. So why did I pay to see their film last week?
I can't speak for everyone who bought a ticket to see Compton, but for me raunchy lyrics were never the real draw. I was more fascinated by the story and circumstances behind their rise. When the comparatively squeaky clean Run-DMC had the mainstream ready to fully embrace rap, five foul-mouthed guys from a city nobody had ever heard of made records about toting sawed off shotguns and carjacking- and people ate it up.
There are some who'll see Compton because they like their entertainment with gratuitous violence and sex. But for others (like me) the story is the main attraction. When you know all the twists that took place in the story of N.W.A., Jerry Heller and Death Row Records between 1986-95, it's not hard to see how the movie's original draft had its total run time clocked at well over 3 hours. Some of the scenes that did wind up in the movie aren't particularly flattering to the main subjects from a morally conservative perspective- I found the hotel party scene more disgusting than humorous, anachronistic jokes aside. That aside, movie goers shouldn't feel guilty about enjoying the film.
Paying to see Compton in theaters doesn't mean I support all of N.W.A.'s antics more than seeing American Gangster or The Wolf of Wallstreet made me a fan of heroin trafficking or corporate fraud. The main focus of a feature film is to entertain; anyone looking to the genre for an objective history lesson will always end up disappointed. Full stories with three perspectives (his, theirs and what really happened) aren't even present in documentaries, let alone fully scripted projects like Compton. Despite whatever rehearsed answers are given by Cube, Dre or Grey in promotional interviews this movie was made for one reason: to line pockets and manufacture legacies.
Is Compton void of facts that weren't pretty but pertinent to telling the whole truth? Absolutely. Are the excuses for doing so, as told by Gray, valid? Not really. An exponentially larger audience will exit N.W.A.'s momentary resurgence with a slanted viewpoint that leaves out the ugly part of their rise. That's not fair. It's not right. I wish a mention of Dre's assault on Barnes was allowed into the script. I wish people would hold Ice Cube more accountable for holding a tired argument against not using "bitch" so much. But so goes Hollywood- the stories are told by the ones with the power to tell them, right or wrong.
It's easy for me to link every major point of growth or change in my life to the music I had on my CD player/iPod/phone at some point. The content of the lyrics and personas of the artists behind them reflected who I was (or wanted to be) at the time, and also foreshadowed who I was about to become. These are the albums that defined the peaks and turmoil that have shaped my worldview and taught me several lessons along the way.
Part 2
Rick Ross, Teflon Don (2010)
"Telfon Don, I am invincible"- MC Hammer, Track 8
The best part of college is the confidence instilled in you by professors. Through both verbal and tangible validation, they give you the reassurance that you're way more than enough. An encouraging word here, followed by a "seize the day" speech there, all capped off by an 'A' once the semester wrapped up.
The music business is the same way, I imagine. A few good album reviews, a co-sign or two via retweet from an A-list rapper and an artist starts to believe their own hype. From 2006-09, Rick Ross strung together three consecutive number one albums. By the time Teflon Don hit in 2010, the word was out- Ross was a superstar.
While Rick Ross was banking hit records, I was starting to discover my gift area. As a senior in high school, I started stringing together 'A' papers in English and garnering a good praise from epic speeches in Rhetoric- no easy feat for the slacker student I was. Momentum built through my first few years of college as I continued to make solid grades and saw that my talking in rhetoric class translated into other areas well. When I wasn't studying, I lived in our campus radio station. I was having fun doing a weekly show my buddy Ian and soon enough we were getting great feedback. On the heels of that I took on more on-air work, eventually getting up to three show per week. People around me liked my work and, after enough positive reinforcement, I did too.
The first singles off Don debuted in the middle of my summer internship at Atlanta radio powerhouse V-103. As an intern for the Frank and Wanda morning show I regularly came across big stars of music and entertainment, Ross himself included. I was 21 on a Bud Light budget and found myself in the same places as industry vets with upscale liquor brands. I'd had interactions with people that had numerous Grammy nominations, Billboard chart toppers and overwhelming notoriety between them. Walking through a parade of all-stars media and entertainment all-stars, I didn't feel star struck- I felt like I belonged.
Ross was also a fish out of water in his own right. His carefully masked and initially denied past as a correctional officer threw his credibility into question; his lyrics featured boasts of a life of crime that he'd obviously only lived through via second hand (at best) accounts from real drug dealers. Fortunately for Ross, the importance of perceived real life street credit to a rapper's popularity had greatly transformed by 2010. The feud between Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. made authenticity less of a requisite for success and more of a death sentence. Ross gave record execs the best of both worlds: dangerous lyrics without the fear of a drive-by outside the studio. He was a manufactured star whose rapid rise to fame placed him among, and in many cases above, music's best acts.
A lot was going right. The internship I'd wanted since high school was mine. I was breezing through classes and developing a good reputation in campus radio. Rick Ross might have had "30 cars" and a "whole lot of dancers" ("MC Hammer") but my Dean's list mini-plaque and couple dozen listeners had me feeling just as good.
To top it off I was single, and finally around females who'd matured past the thug-seeking phase. This good fortune was not lost on me. My ego ballooned and I wasn't letting any of the air out. To paraphrase the hook from "B.M.F." (Track 9), I was Big Meech and Larry Hover armed with textbooks and a refund check.
I loved my college experience, but the success I had on campus masked the reality of challenges that hit after graduation. While it's not easy to do well in school but the formula for success is simple: Get enough questions right, earn an A. Talk to the right girl, get a date. Put in more hours than your peers, get better at your craft. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. It's a process that didn't take me long to master and mislead me into thinking the real world would work the same way.
That wasn't just the hook to Snap!'s 1990 single, it was also the punchline to a popular joke that made the rounds throughout my 3rd grade peer group (according to the joke, it's what a particularly mean teacher said after a vengeful, heroic student shoved a live extension cord down her pants. We were 8-- don't judge). Dated as the song is now, the refrain tells you everything you need to know about the power of music.
I've got the power! Over your mood, self-esteem, relationships and faith. The intricate workings of your mind manipulated through simple synths and beat machines. I've got the power!
It's easy for me to link every major point of growth or change in my life to the music I had on my CD player/iPod/phone at some point. The content of the lyrics and persona of the artist behind them reflected who I was (or wanted to be) at the time and also foreshadowed who I was about to become. These are the albums that, for me, defined the peaks and turmoil that have shaped my worldview and taught several lessons along the way.
Big Boi and Dre Present... OutKast, Outkast (2001)
"...out the Point, to Campbellton Rd."- Git Up, Git Out (Remix), Track 15
A routine Sunday morning drive to Church first made me realize that a big part of my life experience was shared with two mega stars. Before hearing the shout outs to Campbellton Road and Southwest Atlanta littered throughout Big Boi and Dre Present, OutKast's music made sense to me only as an assortment of radio hits and occasional words of reverence from my older cousin, a Tri-Cities High School alum who scolded me for "not knowing nothing about the Dungeon Family" and then jokingly asked me for directions ("how to get to") Sesame Street.
That ultimately serendipitous route to church, through the SWATS and past Campbellton Road on the way to East Point felt mundane to me until I recognized that these places were abstract and fascinating enough to be the subject of hot records for worldwide audiences. Atlanta wasn't just home- it was a place to be proud of, Northern transplants and their unwanted opinions be damned. While the uninitiated who popped in Big Boi and Dre could only imagine slamming Cadillac doors outside Greenbriar or walking through Underground, I had been there, done that and had the MARTA card to prove it.
This album, viewed as a throwaway greatest hits compilation by some hardcore 'Kast fans, was much more to me. It helped me see that culture and a unique upbringing didn't exclusively exist in a far away place- I could be significant right where I was.
The College Dropout, Kanye West (2004)
".. I turn tragedy to triumph/make music that's fire/spit my soul through the wire"- Through The Wire, Track 19
When album releases were still exciting, The College Dropout was the one I anticipated most. I was 14 when it dropped and promptly listened through each track during marathon sessions of Madden '04.
Before it drew public scorn, Kanye West's confidence was absolutely contagious. He was simply apologetically different, a personification for everything that a rapper wasn't supposed to be at that time. Suddenly me and the other black dudes in Honors classes didn't have to exhaust ourselves by existing in two worlds, dressing like trap stars while scuffing our Air Force's to make Lit class on time.
Most of Dropout's themes didn't touch on personal experiences I'd had by 9th grade. Even still, I figured that the road I was headed down was more likely to contain job disillusionment (Spaceship, Track 6) and seemingly insurmountable creative rejection (Last Call, Track 21) than the jail bids and drug deals gone awry other rappers were talking about. If OutKast let me know that I had a story, Dropout made it clear that I didn't have to be embarrassed about it.
Part 2, profiling music that provided the background to my fling with arrogance coming next week.
Now that I'm old enough to somewhat vividly recall the world 20 years ago, I can see that my worldview had yet to be blown up by life's letdowns. The Braves were World Series champions, pro wrestling proved that the good guys always won and I was on track to play both pro football and baseball while defending the WWF Championship in my spare time.
20 years into the future and reality hasn't only set in- it beat down the door, snatched the TV remote and made itself sandwich.
I wish could warn 6 year old me about what was next. The Braves will never be better, Hulk Hogan’s a racist and the road towards all you aspire to become runs straight through a cubicle. The horror.
In actuality, childhood was fun. Naps in school, little to no homework and having tons of energy were all great, but they were enough. Something else, a milestone or new place we heard about from an older sibling or saw on TV didn't just take the fun out of where we were- it made it look like a punishment.
In 8th grade, high school was the
next big thing. Then it was getting a
license, followed by going to college, then graduating from college and ending with getting the right job. Step after step, the next seeming better than the last but each leaving us needing more. Access to the stuff we really want feels impeded by the
things we actually have. But in the mad pursuit of what’s next, we’ve neglected to enjoy what’s now.
I don’t think happiness has to permanently reside in the
future. There are worthwhile moments,
relationships and experiences we can grab right where we are today. Some of these opportunities weren’t possible
last year and won’t be around in one year or even a single day. A lot of these won’t seem shareable on Instagram or up
to par with where your friends appear to be, but looking at situations side by side is useless and unhealthy. Over time I’ve learned that true
contentment dies with comparison.
We
have the choice to yearn for what was, regret could’ve been or hope for what still might happen, but why do that when a better alternative exists? By
acknowledging who we are and what we can do, we empower ourselves to not worry about
what’s not gone/not here and take full advantage of we have right now. Don't merely exist in the present; invest in it.
I've finished more books in the last four years I did in my entire college career.
Required reading in college was a real struggle, but one that I actually managed to get through. The admittedly small handful of books I've finished since college have had a much greater impact on my life than the dozens I read in school.
Two of those inspiring works were written by Paul Angone, an author with a great understanding of the challenges that life in your twenties brings for many of us. I highly suggest you buy his books and follow him on Twitter, but for now check out these praiseworthy quotes from the final chapter of All Groan Up: Searching for Self, Faith and a Freaking Job!", with some follow up thoughts from me below each.
"I was strategically settling for a season to work on a new route toward the dream I felt I was not supposed to let go of."
Waiting for the perfect job kept me in an imperfect one for way too long. On the worst days, it was tempting to fantasize about my next stop: a job that requires all of my talents with management that accepts (and gives me credit for) all of my ideas.
All this plus no night or weekend hours work with a reverse commute from an immaculate downtown condo.
I let my distaste for a job that I couldn't stand allow me to lust for one that didn't exist. Accepting that there is no perfect job will not only make a truly toxic work environment more bearable, it'll also open your mind to a greater number of career moves that'll get you out of that hell hole a lot quicker.
"I stopped waiting for a publisher's permission to tell my story and just began sharing it."
One of my biggest insecurities is feeling that I need a huge audience for anything I create to really matter, as if it's only legit if the masses bear witness. By waiting for a stamp of approval, whether it's from an employer, guy/girl or whomever, we make ourselves slaves to whatever it is that can open the door to what we're fighting for. Do what ever it is that you do, even if it's on a small scale for now.
"All the dark and dismal places of defeat that I'd frequently visited were helping show people a way out of theirs."
To phraphrase Andre 3000, we all want to go to heaven but nobody wants to die. Every inspiring story that motivates us all to push through hard times needed someone to, well, actually suffer first. There's great value in not being born into limitless opportunities, resources and fortune; those who are don't always fare well. See.
"...at 5:00 a.m., on lunch breaks, late into the night, I was still writing. It had become something I could not NOT do."
My last job required a huge time commitment outside of normal working hours. This forced me to really place a premium on time I spent away from work- every hour had to have a purpose, even if it was for rest.
Recovering spare time is like collecting loose change. Bit by bit it doesn't seem like much, but eventually you realize that you've saved enough to get something worthwhile. An easy way to start: don't spend your full lunch hour eating a sandwich. Go hustle (a tip I first borrowed from Jon Acuff).
"I've learned that most of the time we don't choose between chasing our dream and paying the bills. We do both at the same time."
In my senior year at Georgia College, I developed a fear of what I thought was a terrible fate- working a job I didn't love so I could pay bills. Back then, I couldn't imagine that any decent person would settle for a job that did not offer great personal fulfillment and also be impressive enough to get lots of likes on Linkedin. Later that year, I ate chicken wings from a takeout box I thrown in the trash and quickly decided that wasn't about that starving artist life. So I graduated and took a job that didn't do much besides pay for rent and groceries (which is of course is A LOT) while also finding opportunities outside of work to pursue my passions. In other words, I wore suits and wrote blogs... at the same damn time.
"...the detours we'll come across along the way aren't distractions from our dreams... they lead straight to the heart of them."
Years (months? Please, God?) from now, I'll tell you all of those up and down life experiences I had post-graduation were used to write that awesome TV show/book/movie that everyone's talking about. I'll sit on the couch with Jimmy Fallon and laugh about the manipulative, insecure work people, small town slum lords and bad decisions I made all on my own that shaped the wacky characters America's fallen in love with. My success, I'll tell the world, is owed to all the stuff I hated in the moment but value in the present. The camera will lock onto my face close enough for you to see that I truly mean every word of it. You'll know I do because you read me say as much on a free blog site well before my stupid 20s made any sense.
This Sunday, WWE will present the 28th annual Royal Rumble. Each event (first presented as a cable special, then a pay per view and now available via the WWE Network streaming app) is headlined by the Royal Rumble match, a 30 man over-the-tope rope battle royal.
The prize for the winner started as essentially nothing, morphed into bragging rights, was the actual WWF(E) title for a year before settling as a shot at the world championship at Wrestlemania, wrestling's Super Bowl.
The Rumble match stands as a yearly highlight for WWE fans not only because it usually determines the Wrestlemania main event but also because it's also probably the most fun hour of wrestling they'll watch all year. It's all the ridiculousness of the company's over the top production- weird characters, great athleticism, elaborate entrances- packaged neatly into one match.
If you haven't watched wrestling in a while, or ever, the Rumble is the perfect time to get caught up on the year's happenings, or just have a quick one off viewing session. It intentionally competes against nothing (the AFC/NFC championship games are the week before, the Super Bowl the week after) so you can likely DVR anything else you would've watched instead. Should you choose to tune in, here's what to look for.
Who's number one?
WWE logic says that drawing number one is bad luck for obvious reasons: the poor sucker who picks first has to survive the entire match, whereas everyone after entrant #2 can have at least some rest. However, the list of superstars who've kicked off the match is basically an all-star team:
Ric Flair '93
Shawn Michaels '95 (won), '04
Undertaker '08
Rey Mysterio '09
CM Punk '11, '14
Other examples include guys who were lower-tiered at the time (Bret Hart '91, Triple H '96) who would go on to become mega stars. In good Rumble matches, the top draw is either a guy everyone recognizes as a star or is the next man in line for a big promotion to scrapping with the top dogs. The rare exceptions (Crush '97, Rikishi '02) show that when WWE breaks this rule they really break it by nailing it with a sledge hammer, running it over with a Hummer and lighting it on fire... all actions that have coincidentally happened on other wrestling shows over the years.
Prediction for '15: Dean Ambrose is the superstar who'll draw number one. He'll start the match with the second man up, Bray Wyatt.
The non-wrestler/woman/midget entrant
Wrestling, historically, is always welcoming to diversity (*sarcasm*). The Rumble match is no exception, where since Chyna's entry in 1999 we've seen several unusual appearances. Announcers (while calling the match), leprechauns and even Vince McMahon himself have all made their way into the fray. Insiders within wrestling's audience hold the belief that this type of tomfoolery gives McMahon, the eccentric owner both on and off screen, a good laugh. This guarantees at least one odd entry every year.
Prediction for '15: J & J Security, who were actually full-time wrestlers not too long ago but now serve as bumbling lackeys.
The fat guy never wins
You'd think that a big guy would have a noticeable advantage in an athletic competition that involves lifting other combatants over your shoulders and tossing them to the floor, but that's not the case here. With the exception of Yokozuna (600lbs) in 1993, the biggest man in the match has never actually won. That list includes 7-footers Andre the Giant and the Big Show, along with classic fat men of yesteryear like King Kong Bundy, Mabel and the two nameless Squat Team members.
Prediction for '15: Big Show reprises his role. Again.
The class reunion
Some old guy WWE legend will make an unexpected run down the ramp after years out of the ring. He won't win.
Prediction for '15: The Philadelphia crowd boos loudly when Terrell OwensKobe BryantSanta Claus Batista makes his way to the squared circle.
Stupid tag teams
Most tag teams (notable exceptions being Legacy in '09 and The New Nexus in '11) decide that the best time to break apart is against 28 other guys in the middle of the Rumble. The wrestling equivalent of friends splitting up in a horror movie, this is quite possibly the worst strategy in the history of all fights. This doesn't only make sense for established teams to try; theoretically any group of Rumble participants could benefit. Just once I'd like to two non-tag wrestlers enter within the first five spots and proceed to pick off 10 consecutive opponents before a big name guy enters and holds his own until things even out. It's one of my big wrestling pet peeves- common sense, or what someone would do if it were real, isn't written into the script often enough.
Prediction for '15: A double take: The getting stale team of Gold/Stardust apply the aforementioned self-defeating tactic and take each other out of the match. Then, Miz and Damien Mizdown team to beatdown a few others before the inevitable spot where Miz gets tossed out and Mizdow (his stunt double) doesn't follow suit.
Kofi Kingston justifying his annual salary in one night
Prediction for '15: Kofi gets an assist from New Day teammate Big E who gives Kofi a piggy back ride into the ring.
Glenn Jacobs: WWE's Madonna
This year marks Rumble number 18 for Glenn Jacobs a.k.a. Issac Yankem, "Diesel", Kane and now... Corporate Kane (creative fatigue?). Always a new look, but still the same guy.
Prediction for '15: Kane enters around 15 and gets rid of a replaceable fan favorite. He hangs around for 12 minutes before one of the recently "fired" superstars, probably Dolph Ziggler, returns to eliminate him.
The guy who cleans house
Sometimes the Rumble lulls itself to the point where you ask yourself "wait, when did 12 guys get in the ring?" In comes WWE's latest star project, one who possesses the prototypical super human height and muscle mass that the company traditionally values in its stars, to clear the ring of your least favorite wrestlers and the absurd thoughts you had of them actually surviving to win.
Prediction for '15: This sequence was made for Rusev. He's not garnered enough cache with the crowd to win the match but has got enough credibility to wipe out a gang of lesser competitors in short order.
The chosen one
Eventually (total run times for the 30-man version of the match has varied from 38 minutes to just over an hour) the last remaining entrant is declared the winner of the Royal Rumble. We've seen WWE fill this spot with up and comers, but the three most recent winners were all well established stars: Batista, John Cena and Sheamus.
This year's Rumble winner could go either way- long standing rumors have the polarizing, company backed Roman Reigns as the favorite, but the surprise return of last year's Wrestlemania headliner Daniel Bryan has some calling him the likely winner. With less than a week to go until showtime, there's still not a consensus as to who'll be the man for this year's show. With WWE likely seeking a substantial increase in subscribers for the WWE Network, don't expect them rely on an unproven commodity to win and co-headline its biggest show of the year.
Prediction for '15: Daniel Bryan wins the Royal Rumble match.
