Now in My Twenties

Though I am a true writer, I think it is important I say this: writing is not fun. I doubt it ever will be. It is lonesome, frustrating, difficult and all-consuming. So why do I do it? Why do I spend hours of my time miserably trying to write down those perfect words? Why do I put myself through something that gives me total unrest? Because my dear, sweet reader, I will suffer all the more if I do not. Writing, in any way, shape or form, forces us to face our thoughts. That is the purpose. Our thoughts are born in our head, pushed down our neck, sliver down the arm, onto the fingers, through the pen and finally onto paper. Once there, we cannot escape them. We cannot deny them. Whether good or bad, smart or dumb, those words are our thoughts. No one else can think them but us. The good news is that writing our thoughts is an immediate release of pressure. Almost like they were trying to escape our heads in the first place. I cannot sit idly by while these bionic, superchar...

So there I was. All dressed up and in my car, following the voice of my GPS, making turn after turn. I had made a wrong turn sometime earlier, making my GPS go into overdrive trying to steer me back the right way. She insisted I go back to the main road (I programmed my GPS to have a female voice; no way would my pride be able to take another man’s voice telling me what to do.) Turn right, turn left, left again, she said. But, of course, to no avail. Finally, I accepted the undeniable truth; I would not get to my destination tonight. My destination was a restaurant in a very business-y section of downtown Fort Worth. A local group was meeting there tonight for after-hours drinks and networking. I hadn't been to these meetings in almost a year. Not quite sure how I felt about going back. But the voices of all the no-nonsense career experts kept talking in my head, “It’s not what you know, but who you know.” As usual, I listened and did as I was told. But I have to admit, th...

This post is a little late in timing. I know graduation was back in May—and to all those who graduated, congratulations! It wasn’t easy. Hell, it was really hard. But that’s okay because you did it and no one can ever take that away from you. But now that it’s been a few months; now that you’ve had a chance to settle in; now that you’ve seen a little bit of The Real World, I’m sure you have found yourself questioning at some point or other, “Is this it?” and maybe even “what now?” I know because I am still asking myself those questions too. Now, I might be wrong. You could be doing exactly what it was that you had set out to do after graduation. You could be making the big bucks; travelling the world; finding the love of your life; moving to New York, et cetera, et cetera. Or you could be at a grayish cubicle day in and day out with a nondescript job title earning little more than $15 an hour. For many of us, this is our reality. But let me be very clear, this is not a...