Life Actually: Birth of a Role Model

I believe a role model is a person you can draw inspiration from, a person whose chosen walk of life is one you admire and one you wish to model your life after. I do not have a role model, largely because I have spent the last twenty plus years going with the flow of where life took me. Naturally I took classes that were of particular interest: philosophy of education, digital media convergence, quest for wholeness (by far my favorite course); but, never once did I envision the type of life I ultimately would want to lead.

Everything seemed to always work itself out: honor student in grade school and middle school, accepted to three different high schools and graduated with honors, accepted to various colleges, spent a year in NY before realizing it was not the college experience I desired and transferred to a more suitable collegiate environment (#LongLiveElon). I became a member of the greatest fraternity, and then went onto law school. I became very involved in law school, and graduated on time. Took the bar exam, passed on the second time and spent less than a year doing odd jobs before being hired at my current place of employment. Sure I have suffered ups and downs, a fair share of which I thought I might mot recover from, but I never really stopped to think about where my life was headed and the path I had traversed so far.

It is only quite recently with the introduction of new people in my life that I have begun to see some shape to what that life may look like. Due to my fondness for people and my curiosity into human behavior, I rather enjoy social experiments, and my most recent undertaking has exposed me to a culture and community that oddly enough made me learn more about myself and the type of man I want to be more than anything else. While I do not implore everyone to run social experiments, especially without some consent or agreements, I can honestly state that in leaving your comfort zone you can learn so much more about yourself then you would in continuing to lead your life uninterrupted.

How do I describe an experience you would need to live to capture? I cannot. In fact, isn't that the point? Similar to skydiving I can only tell you how awesome it was, but I cannot supply the information for you to experience it vicariously. You sometimes have to pull the brakes and catch your breath so you can experience life actually. Sometimes you have to experience a different sort of life in order to understand the type of life you have or the type of life you want. Become your own role model by doing something different and outside your normal walk of life.

Crisis Mode

When you hit crisis mode it may feel as if all your faculties have shut down, when in fact they have not stopped but been channeled towards resolving the crisis. Your brain suddenly remembers memories you had once forgotten, keenly aware of the events leading up to, and creating the situation you now find yourself in. It is essentially the flight-or-fight response geared towards fight mode. The multitude of ideas, thoughts, concepts, and plans that consistently fill your mind are replaced by the desire to figure out the present situation and find amicable resolution.

I recall back in my undergraduate days minoring in corporate communications and taking public relations courses, the idea of crisis management was a significant theme. When a crisis arises an entire company may halt its operations, experts called in, appointments and daily personal lives cancelled all in an aimed attempt to move quickly and effectively. Similarly, when we hit a crisis situation in our personal life we may stop our day, call our friends and family for advice, and cancel prior engagements to deal with the situation. A Public Relations practitioner is typically the best resource for a company/organization to use in a crisis situation because above all else your public image is most essential to surviving the crisis. However, when dealing with a personal crisis one can often find the best resource is not so easily ascertainable.

This is because it is in our nature to reach out during crisis mode. We, like organizations, can turn all our faculties and senses to the resolution of this crisis, but we still seek external help to solve internal problems. This is natural and it is also a mistake. Unlike an organization our personal crises are likely not affected by government regulations, stock values, and the consequences of our personal crisis are not likely to be covered by the likes of Washington Post or Page Six. In crisis mode the best plan comes from within you. By all means talk to friends and family, I always do, but ultimately you have to decide the correct course of action because you are the one who has to deal with the results. You remember how when the crisis first came about, you began recalling all the events that led up to it; this is to show that you are the one most equipped with the tools and understanding of the crisis and perhaps how best to resolve it. Whether to take the aggressive, passive aggressive, or standoff approach is ultimately a call you will have to make. Take counsel when you need it, heed the advice as you see fit, make the best effort to deal with the situation swiftly and effectively, and if you should fail; fail knowing that you naturally gave it your best shot. This is crisis mode.

Tick, Tock - Damn This Clock

I have no idea who bears the responsibility or how they set it off. Truth be told I do not care, please just turn it off. It did not happen first thing this morning like I was warned one day it would. Instead it occurred five minutes ago as I pulled into the metro station for the second leg of my morning commute. It went off, loud and clear as the alarm on my phone only an hour prior, my biological alarm clock.

This clock's alarm is not a loud piercing sound like a typical buzzer but "life's more challenging questions" in my head swirling and richocheting in my mind at the speed of light: you are 28 when will you settle down with someone to spend your life with? will these wonderful friendships you have bring the pitter-patter of children's feet to your home? when are you going to be an owner and stop being a renter? your niece will be three soon, no plans to provide her with a cousin her age, give your mom another grandchild? your looks and body will soon fall into disrepair and who will want you then? when will you come home to a warm smile instead of a cold bed?

For five minutes these questions pounded my brain leaving me with a kindle in my hand and the strong sense of insecurity. Only a few months ago I made the conscious decision to take a break from relationships and to allow myself to be single and find happiness within myself. Now with the incessant ringing in my head should I abandon this plan and make myself readily available to meet, greet, mingle until I find that special person. I was told only fools rush in, and momma ain't raise no fool. However, maybe they rushed in because it was the only was to shut off this Damn clock! How do you turn this off, oh my gosh...

God's Big Plans or Big Game?

You ever hear the expression: "if you ever want to make God laugh, tell him what you have planned." The point is to instruct people that whomever or whatever your Supreme being may be, they have the master plan for you and they know what is best suited for you. This may come in the forms of: challenges, opportunities, tragedies, achievements, losses, and gains. Ultimately, the point is to inform you, yes of course live your life to the best of your ability, but do not be surprised when things go off course and change leading you down a different path.

Often we, as humans, will set goals, benchmarks, dates, and timelines for the important things in our life. This can be as simple as what time to get to work or as complicated as to career and retirement choices. In the grand scheme of things, the more complicated plans we have are usually the ones that are interfered with in some shape, way or form. The issue is how we interpret this interruption and thus how we deal with it. For example, you promise yourself to find a job in federal government within 3 months. However, after 3 months you get a job offer from a non-profit, do you take it or wait for the federal job? Or perhaps you promised yourself you would never date another lawyer, but then you come upon someone who is great, treats you right, and is very honest. Two weeks later you discover they are a lawyer or plan to go to law school. Do you end it because of your plan, or do you go for it on the chance the greater power has something better in mind for you?

Even if you decide that this new job, new person, new opportunity is something that was unplanned and is perhaps the higher power creating a new path in your life; you then have to decided why it has been put in your life. See let us not forget that while we are given gifts, we are also gifted with hurdles and challenges. Could this job opportunity or new person actually be a test? Perhaps God simply wants to see how determined you are to meet your set goals. It is very possible that while working at the nonprofit company you not only are underpaid for the work and benefit you provide for the community, but you miss out on the federal job, and end up quitting to again look for a federal job within another 3 months. It is very possible that this new person who turns out to be of a type you never want to date again, begins lying to you a little while into the relationship and does all the things you were trying to avoid.

Unfortunately, we can never know these things up front. As you know my blog never really provides answers, and this one may even make you question more of these instances in your life. (Sorry in advance). However, I do always state my personal belief. When these things happen to me, I take a deep breath, look up to the sky, and say one thing: "You better not be playing me because I am not trying to go through this again." I never receive an answer but I feel better knowing I have voiced my concerns, and plan to proceed with caution.