To the Class of 2018, congratulations. After four years, you've graduated from college and now you're "ready" to take on the so-called real world.
I thought I was ready. And I'm sure if you rewind to this time last year, friends and family of mine would have told you that even just after my three years of college, that I was more prepared for the real world than anybody. And I believed them.
How sadly I was mistaken.
Now I know what you're thinking. If you're at all close with me, you know that for the last nine months I've been working at ESPN, the biggest sports media company in the world. For some of you, SportsCenter's music was a part of your childhood soundtrack, and you may have thought how cool it would be to work at ESPN. I was one of those young boys, and although ESPN was never my goal, I've found myself here and there are few places I'd rather start off my professional career. And I'll be honest, it's an amazing place to be and I'm truly grateful to the people here that took a chance on a young kid straight out of college.
However...
That's just what I am. A young kid out of college. I graduated college a year early, and I'm significantly younger than most everyone I work with. I work in a male-dominated field in a town crawling with high school girls, not young professional women. It certainly doesn't help that the next two nights I'm working from 9:30pm-6:00am, which throws off my body's homeostasis like never before. I'm at the bottom of the totem pole, so no one really cares much about what I'm like as a person, just as an employee. No one cares about who I am or what I like to do or what I stand for. And that's not a stab at ESPN--it's a great place to work. I'm sure that's typical of many other places too.
Listen, I'm not complaining. At whatever bizarre time I wake up at every day and every time I walk onto that campus, I tell myself how lucky I am to have not only gotten a job right out of college, but to have gotten a really good one. I relocated to Bristol, CT and I live in a decent apartment and the paychecks are good enough to cover my rent and my need to overspend on fresh fruits and vegetables and fancy healthy peanut butters (again, if you know me, you know I'm a Nazi about what I put into my body). Because of this, I know I'm lucky and that many people would kill to be in my position, so I make a point not to complain. But, just because I'm in a good situation, it doesn't mean I've found that elusive elixir to life we're all seeking:
Happiness.
Let me be blunt here. This is not easy. All of those "friends" you had in college? You'll see how quickly they forget about you. You'll see how they get so wrapped up in their own lives that they forget you exist. Think about it--all those "meaningful" relationships you had with the girls in your sorority or the guys on your club basketball team. How often did you hang out with them when alcohol wasn't in the picture? Because for many of you, alcohol was a coping mechanism you used so you could tolerate other people.
In this post-college world, many of you will be truly on your own now. Gone are the hungover Sunday brunches with your "friends." Gone are the $2 Bud Light's for Trivia Night at the local pub. You're going to spend a lot of time alone. And you're going to have to decide what it is you stand for, what your values are, and how you want to spend your time. Before you can bring a significant other into your life, you need to first figure out how to love yourself. You need to figure out where you want to go and who you want to be. Many of you will avoid those questions by watching Netflix and scrolling through Instagram. What for? Where will that get you? In reality, it will mask the truth: You're alone, and you don't know what to do.
The good thing for you is, I'm alone too. But that's OK. I accept it, and I'm learning how to deal with it. It's a marathon and not a sprint. I'm still figuring out what my values are, how I want to fill my days, how to balance work and life, how to bring in new people into my new life and cut people out of my old one. I'm doing this in search of that magical word that so many of us never truly find, despite searching our entire lives for it (see above). And I don't just mean waking up with a smile on a random Wednesday. I mean I want to find happiness. Not the "happiness" that the fashion magazines and Hollywood tells us we should all want. That's fake happiness. Society tells you you're supposed to want money, cars and clothes. It's nice to have money for the security it provides, but it doesn't provide anything more than that. Why do you think so many of the world's richest and most famous overdose on drugs? Because they live lives of material wealth, not spiritual wealth--the wealth we all should strive to find.
I want contentment. I want to become a living embodiment of The Golden Rule. I want to fill my days with meaningful work, meaningful relationships, and meaningful experiences. I want a zest for life and to spread that passion to others who don't realize what it truly means to live a life of deliberate meaning. That's what my values are.
As a result, I'm going to post a different blog every week detailing everything I'm learning about being a real adult. I don't have all the answers, but I'm searching for them and I think I'm on the right track. But many of you who are graduating this month, and even those who aren't but are still struggling navigating this same journey that I am, I want you to know you can rely on me.
So I hope you keep coming back, because when that moment hits you, the one where you realize the college days are over, I want you to know you can find me. If we've spoken 1000 times or one time, I don't care. You can reach out to me on Facebook or comment on this blog or find me some other way. Or you can just keep reading along, and perhaps you have some of the same thoughts I do. Like I said, I don't have all the answers. Feel free to enlighten me and educate me. But I think I've got a head start on a lot of people, because I'm slowly finding out the essential ingredients to leading a happy lifestyle, but I know I'm not there yet, and I know you aren't either. And I want to help.
--Troy
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