Last Friday was our last Challenge Friday. We graduated, and are officially alumni. It has been a year of self discovery and (often times painful) growth. After hearing from so many leaders in the city and receiving a ton of advice, I was inspired to write a farewell, commencement speech type post of my own. (Really, I just wanted to write down all the things I have to remember and carry into anything I do next.) And so I leave you with a few parting words:
- Don’t “network, network, network” – I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve gotten the advice to “network.” It is the go to thing to say to millennials. And I’m living proof that it makes sense – so many things in my life, from apartments to opportunities, have come through my network. But this year I couldn’t bring myself to go to networking events or follow up with introductions. When I look back it’s never having a network I remember, rather it is all the individual relationships that come with it. We only have so much energy, and I don’t want to spend it forever “building a network.” So I’m not going to. I’m going to build relationships – let others into my heart and life, learn their hopes, dreams, fears, quirky fast food orders… and hope they’ll do the same.
- Compartmentalize, but not your identity – I spent so much of school and college going from project to project. I work best like that. When I can fully throw myself into the one thing I have going on and focus on nothing else. Adulthood is a rude wake up call that life doesn’t work like that. It’s a tough balancing act, easily avoided with the right amount of Netflix. Compartmentalizing – whatever that is, seems to be the solution. I learned this year that I never learned how to compartmentalize, which then led me to a striking epiphany. I never learned how to balance work because I was too busy balancing my identity, fitting it into what I thought the space called for. I can’t do both, so I guess this just means I have to be a full human wherever I am.
- You pick your rock bottom – Rock bottom is the moment where you definitively choose not to live the way you have been. It’s not the event that makes rock bottom, but your reaction to it.
- Everything, at some level, always turns out how you intend it to – Everything I’ve dreaded this year has been meh, everything I’ve secretly hoped would get cancelled has fallen apart, everything I put thought, energy, and time into has come to fruition in a positive way. The universe sends back what you send out.
- Live to make others’ lives stressfree, and yours will become too – I haven’t learned this through practice, but through doing the opposite and failing colossally. I spent so much of this year really selfish – in the mindset of what is easy for me, what works with my schedule, what I need or want at the time. I thought that the ultimate measure of adulting was knowing what I wanted and pushing for it no matter what. I was wrong. It’s learning how I fit into the world I live in and understanding what I can offer at any given moment to make things easier for those around me.
- There is a time for planning and then there is a time for deciding – Don’t overstay your welcome in either.
- Do what feels right, even if it doesn’t make sense to you right away – Especially if it doesn’t make sense right to you away. I’ve never been good at leaps of faith – I don’t dive, I don’t roller coaster, I don’t trust fall. It freaks me out to not know how I’ll land. But this past year, I’ve realized the only moments I have regretted are those where I haven’t followed my gut instinct.
- You control the pace of your life – Capitalism and the 50+ hour work week… suck. Let it consume you, but only as much as you are okay with.