Resiliency of the Human Spirit

2009 has not started in the most positive way possible for me, to say the least. In the span of a month and a half, I was affected by three deaths – those of an immediate family member, a college mentor and a hometown friend – as well as the end of a romantic relationship with someone I was seeing.

This post is a hard one to write, since no one likes admitting that they have been going through a difficult time, but I figure if I aim to chronicle my life through this blog, I should show the challenges in addition to the triumphs…

I think that the aforementioned events really forced me to take a step back and reexamine my life, my relationships, my self of sense – even more thoroughly than usual…

When death comes to rip apart the daily normalcy we take for granted, we are reminded of our own mortality and ask ourselves: What is our calling? How will we leave our mark? How will we be remembered? And we are reminded of the mortality of those within our support systems – our friends and family – who could slip away at any moment and we seize the moment to let them know how important they are to us.

We struggle to find meaning in death… but the best we can do is let go a little and learn to go on, carrying with us the legacy of those who have helped shape our life story. And we somehow find peace in the fact that these people who we’ve permanently lost from our lives will remain with us in the form of nostalgic memories and sleepy dreams…

In terms of the end of the romantic relationship I referenced – I realize that I’m no worse off than before. I was in a good place in my life and ready to share my happiness and success with another. I found someone with whom I felt I had truly connected (which is a rare thing for me), but, as it happens, he didn’t feel the same way… and that’s always (really) hard to take.

But I am who I am — which isn’t so bad — and feel like I can continue to walk with my head held high. So I guess I come out of the whole thing a bit older and wiser (and a bit hurt but hopefully not any more jaded)…

I have to qualify the folllowing sentence, because sometimes it really is hard to stay optimistic — especially when you just were told that you weren’t a match by someone who you thought could make you happy and vice versa — but, at this very moment, I’m looking forward to meeting someone in the future who I’ll be crazy about, who’ll reciprocate those feelings all the while accepting me for who I’ve been, who I am and who I’m trying to become…

I’ll bare my soul even more (if that’s even possible) and say that with with everything that’s happened in 2009, there were days I couldn’t believe I had gotten myself out of bed, dressed, to work, and even out socializing. There were moments when I forgot about how everything had changed but then it would all come flooding back and I felt like I had been hit by a truck as I remembered the shifted reality of my life…

I think the hardest part about feeling “down” for someone like me who is usually an overall positive person is that you aren’t sure you’ll ever feel like your upbeat self again. It was finally this weekend that I started feeling like I’m on my way to being whole… and it’s nice to once again walk with some pep in my step and tranquility in my heart.

Principles By Which To Live

I undoubtely have a lot I want to write about – from hearing Frank Warren speak about online communities to iPhone’s missing capabilities to how I observed Martin Luther King, Jr, Day to my reactions on the Inauguration of President Barak Obama to the challenge we face trying to quantify the value of social media… but I’ve had trouble concentrating on any of these subjects.

Instead, for a variety of reasons, I’ve found myself thinking about how I can live my life fully. People often ask me whether I consider myself religious and I really struggle with that word, but I do consider myself spiritual. And part of that is finding balance and peace in one’s life.

To that end, I’ve come up with “The Five Tenets of Julie“, which I think begin to capture how I try to conduct my life in respect to myself and in respect to others.

The five principles I’ve outlined are by no means a finished product and I will be the first to admit that they are a bit sappy, even for my taste. But it feels nice to be able to write them down concretely rather than trying to wrap my head around them abstractly.

Do you have tenets of your own that help guide you through this messy course we call life?

More to Life?

I spoke to a friend this past weekend who started her first “real” job since graduating from college. She asked me a question that I struggled to answer shortly after my own graduation — “There’s got to be more to life than this, right?”

Without a doubt, graduating college students are unprepared for the transitional months of becoming a self-sufficient, productive member of society.

College by nature is a social setting – you complete projects in groups, live with others, engage in clubs, etc. You don’t have to search very hard to find someone who’s willing to do whatever you have in mind (just hang out, go to the bars, check out a new organization, the list goes on and on).

But adulthood is quite the opposite. Yes, we go to our workplaces where we have the opportunity to interact with others, but at the end of the day we all head home to our individual lives and responsibilities.

So, I think recent graduates suffer from a self-purpose crisis — different from a quarter-life crisis — as the reality of monotonous work and chores combined with the sudden and shocking seclusion reveals itself.

We become defined by our careers and nostalgically long for the days where we could pursue our passions whenever and with whomever we chose. It’s only once the memory of our collegiate glory days begin to fade that we are able to find meaning in our present routine.

I told my friend all this, to which she promptly responded, “So what did you do?”

And that part of the story is easy to tell. After graduation I lived in Boston where I had a job I loved, co-workers who were my best friends, great roommates, and my family nearby. I immersed myself in my work and felt like all I did was work, eat and sleep. Clearly, there was something missing.

So I decided that there was more to life and I owed it to myself to be truly fulfilled, not just professionally. And I walked away from it all, turning my life upside-down, and moving to DC, to a new a job, without my coworkers, my roommates, and my family, (but where, I do have to admit, I have a great — but in terms of size and quality — network of friends).

I’m slowly learning what it’s like to leave my work at the office (a healthy work-life balance is something my office encourages), and my nights are filled with industry events, DC explorations and other misadventures with my friends.

I don’t know whether it was simply the passing of time or my relocation, but I found that I haven’t been asking myself recently whether there’s more to life.

But enough about me. If you’re a recent college graduate, have you experienced what I’m describing? Or was the transition a smooth one?