{"id":16312,"date":"2016-07-31T21:45:45","date_gmt":"2016-07-31T21:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/?p=16312"},"modified":"2016-07-31T21:45:45","modified_gmt":"2016-07-31T21:45:45","slug":"so-i-guess-were-graduating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/so-i-guess-were-graduating\/","title":{"rendered":"So, I guess we’re graduating?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last\u00a0Friday was our last Challenge Friday. We graduated, and are officially alumni. It\u00a0has 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\u00a0my own. (Really, I just wanted to write down\u00a0all the things I have to remember and carry into anything I do next.) And so I leave you with a few parting words:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Don’t “network, network, network”<\/strong> – 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,\u00a0have\u00a0come 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,\u00a0rather 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\u00a0into my heart and life, learn their hopes, dreams, fears, quirky fast food orders… and hope they’ll do the same.<\/li>\n
  2. Compartmentalize, but not your identity –<\/strong> I spent so much of school and college going from project\u00a0to 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\u00a0a rude wake up call that life\u00a0doesn’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\u00a0epiphany. I\u00a0never learned how to balance work\u00a0because I was too busy balancing my identity, fitting it into what I thought the space called for.\u00a0I can’t do both, so I guess this just means I have to be a full human wherever I am.<\/li>\n
  3. You pick your rock bottom –<\/strong> 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.<\/li>\n
  4. Everything, at some level, always turns out how you intend it to –<\/strong> 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\u00a0into has come to fruition in a positive way. The universe sends back what you send out.<\/li>\n
  5. Live to make others’ lives stressfree, and yours will become too<\/strong> – 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\u00a0of adulting\u00a0was knowing what I\u00a0wanted and pushing for it no matter what. I\u00a0was wrong. It’s learning how I\u00a0fit into the world I\u00a0live in and understanding what I can offer at any given moment to\u00a0make things easier for those around me.<\/li>\n
  6. There is a time for planning and then there is a time for deciding –<\/strong> Don’t overstay your welcome in either.<\/li>\n
  7. Do what feels right, even if it doesn’t make sense to you right away –\u00a0<\/strong>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\u00a0moments I have regretted are those where I haven’t followed my gut instinct.<\/li>\n
  8. You control the pace of your life –<\/strong>\u00a0Capitalism and the 50+ hour work week… suck. Let it consume you, but only as much as you are okay with.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Last\u00a0Friday was our last Challenge Friday. We graduated, and are officially alumni. It\u00a0has 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\u00a0my own. (Really, I just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":154,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leaddetroit","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/154"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}