CeReBrAL GuMbo.....

Now Playing: I'm taking my freedom,
Pulling it off the shelf,
Putting it on my chain,
Wear it around my neck,
I'm taking my freedom,
Putting it in my car,
Wherever I choose to go,
It will take me far.
I'm livin' my life like it's golden
Livin' my life like it's golden! -Golden, Jill Scott, Beautifully Human: Words And Sounds Vol. 2


I'm in the line moving side to side--I'm way too excited to keep still. It's the moment I've been waiting for--4 1/2 years in the making. GRADUATION! My classmates around me are feeling just as jittery as I am--all together we probably look like a Red Bull commercial gone wrong.

Caps are being straightened, gowns are zipped tight, grads are still hurting from the club last night.

The gym is filled with so much nervous energy you can grab it with your hands. The last minute stragglers dress as they rush to their places in line--and it begins.

You know that slow clap you hear in the movies, when one guy claps ridiculously slow then everyone follows suit?...well--in that moment...I was that guy. "Vibin'! Vibin'! I'm in my zone! I'm in my zone!" Within 5 minutes, the School of Journalism and Graphic Communication was doing the 18th remix of Piccolo's song--ah the joys of graduation!

In the distance, you could hear the faint sounds of the Alma Mater being played;Prof. G comes down to the holding pen (the extremely small hallway the graduates stand in before the procession), and we know it's time to move.

Just outside of that hallway, and across that stage, marks the beginning of the rest of our lives. We've waited so long for that golden piece of paper. Our professors told us that it will take us anywhere we want to go; our parents told us we can be anything we want to be. We're going to get so many job offers that we'll have to turn at least 10 down--our dream job in in our grasps. As soon as the Dean speaks those magic words: "Congratulations class of 2008, you may now move your tassels"--reality hits.

Those job offers they told us about turn out to be check-cashing scams. Those 10 jobs they told us you we'd have to turn down--they aren't interested because we're either over qualified or under experienced. We go from living on your own, to moving back home (we convince ourselves we only did it to cut cost...right?).

The dream job you thought you had quickly turns into a nightmare when one day you look around your 3x5 cubicle ( that you decorated with the paper clip streamers you made in between office coffee runs and photocopying your face)--you realize you're nothing but a glorified gopher (but you convince yourself it's just paying dues...it happens in every profession...right?).

WRONG!

But worry not my dear friends--you are not alone. We have all been bamboozled, led astray, hoodwinked if you will. We've been tricked into believing the good ole' American dream. The college degree, the stepford husband/wife, the 2.5 kids, and Lassie guarding your house that's surrounded by the white picket fence--not to forget the great job you will get at age 22 and retire from when you die.

No one tells you what to do when you get that so called dream job and hate every minute. You went to school for advertising and don't have a creative bone in your body. You were pre-med in school and had a change of heart about being a doctor. You became a dispatcher of sorts but your raging ADHD won't let you sit still long enough to answer a call--but this is what you chose to do with the rest your life; you're stuck--right?

WRONG AGAIN!

Two years have passed since I graduated from college and I'm still figuring it out. I've stressed and stressed and tried my hand at a million different jobs; and none of them seem to be that perfect, rest-of-my life fit--but why does it have to be? Why do I have to find that one job and stick to it? Why is my happiness dependent on how many figures I make, or how far I climb the corporate ladder?

I've spent years trying to figure out how to live the "dream" only to realize that reality is much better.

So I say to my fellow grads...SCREW THE DREAM and live your own! Let life take you where it may. Yeah, it's good to have a plan, but the most well laid plans often go horribly wrong--and that's not always a bad thing. Hey, Columbus thought he was taking a quick vacation to India and ended up (so the history books claim) discovering a whole new country--and besides the genocide of the native people, slavery, Jim Crow and crooked politics--look how well that worked out for him! In the history books forever!

My point is this: Don't confine yourself to someone else's rules for success. Live on your terms! So what if everyone doesn't agree with your plans--but they are your plans! Too many of us are beating ourselves up because our triangular ideas aren't fitting into the square norm. So we chip and chip away at ourselves trying to fit into that cookie cutter shape until the entire essence of us is gone. So make your own norm. If you don't fit the square, then cut out your own shape--hell, blow the square up and make EVERYTHING fit with ease. Throw all of your preconceived notions on how life after college should be out the window and just live. All of the money and fame that comes after is just icing on the cake...

Living for me