Heroes and Friends

Often times our mentors become our everyday heroes. I’ve had several over the years, but one in particular stands out to me. Justine Ramsey. ustine’s from New York, I’m from Georgia. We often joke we’re an unlikely pair, the yankee and the redneck. It’s only fitting that I picked a very country, country song for this post. Jokes aside, there’s a very important lyric in Randy Travis’ song that lead me to picking it. “Your heroes will help you find good in yourself.”

The Joke’s on Them

I have a close friend who, like me, has anxiety. When I started my blog she asked me a question I knew someone would eventually ask me. “Aren’t you scared coming out about your anxiety will affect your career?” Quite frankly, I have no desire to work for now or in the future any company that blindly accepts stereotypes, mental illness related or otherwise.

If Everyone Cared

There’s another very important analogy the appearance of my car post-accident reminded me of. You see at first glance you might not have even realized my car was involved in an accident. If you didn’t look closely or open my trunk, the accident didn’t look that bad. That’s the thing about taking things at face value, they can be deceiving. Likewise, are we too quick to assume people are okay just because they look okay?

Only in America

I started this blog because after years of comparing myself to others I was finally beginning to see I was enough. As an American I was born with the right to pursue my own happiness and it was time for me to stop taking that for granted. It was time for me to stop comparing myself to others and trying to abide by the way others defined happiness.

Slow down, you crazy child.

Work-life balance. It’s funny how many millennials and Gen Zers I interview rank work-life balance as one of the top 3 things they’re looking for in their careers, but yet when asked, they can’t tell me what that means to them. It begs the question, do they really not know or are they too afraid to be honest? Has Corporate America created a culture where we fear expressing what work-life balance means to us because it could be misconstrued as negative work ethic?

Someday we’ll figure all this out.

This morning as I waited for my Keurig to warm up like usual I found myself lost in thought. Unlike most mornings I wasn’t thinking about what I needed to do today. I found myself thinking about my coffee cup. It was my Charlotte, NC Starbucks mug. The one with a giant crack down the front from years of use. My morning reminder that “someday we’ll figure this all out.”

Time is wasting.

I spent four times the amount of time researching cell phones than I did researching where I was going to live. What does it says about Millennials that we spend more time and effort deciding what new toy to buy than the place we call home? What could we accomplish in the time we waste overthinking frivolous decisions if we trusted our instincts instead?

You can’t always get what you want.

My mother is a lot of things. She’s quirky and unapologetically unique. She’s dedicated and hard working. She’s outspoken and at times a little annoying. Growing up she drove me insane with all her momisms. As wise as they were, they were never what I actually wanted to hear. It’s funny how those little phrases that I once deemed annoying and stupid shaped me into the person I am today.