Everything Sucks Today

I know, I know: You are not happy.

You are sad and annoyed, and maybe even a little angry.

The last thing you want is an old dude telling you to chill out.

But hey, chill out, young buck.

Classes are going online and you didn’t get that tuition discount you wanted. You didn’t sign up for an online education and you really don’t enjoy the experience. You think the teachers have no idea how to teach online. You miss your friends and human interaction in general. Zoom fatigue is real (and here I am opening this post with a picture of an in-person class like it’s the 1980s or something).

The job market looks grim, so what’s the point anyway?

To make it all worse, you’ve streamed everything from every possible streaming outlet and now you are bored.

Life kinda sucks right now. Does that about sum it up?

Yeah, I know. I’m there too.

But I’m not going to let myself stew and stagnate, and you shouldn’t either.

I’ve always been the kind of person who thinks three steps ahead of stuff. I’ve always tried to map out where I want to be down the line and start taking the steps to get there now.

When school went online in March, I started this blog. I needed an outlet, and a database for my virtual stuff. It’s not much but it’s been a way for me to process thoughts and share ideas.

Also, it gives me a sense of purpose, even if no one is reading this.

And in the age of social distancing – when we can’t always be with the people we love, when everyone is working from home, when our only interactions come through the Interwebs, everything starts to feel so meaningless.

Writing at least gives me that sense of purpose, a modicum of the purpose I felt when we were all at school together.

What are you doing to feel like this isn’t all so pointless?

How can you start thinking three steps ahead when you have no idea what you want to do in life?

Very fair question, one I think about all the time. I also have no idea where I want to be and what I want to be doing (lately, all I keep thinking is: You need to live in Hawaii …).

Well, you don’t know what you will or will not enjoy unless you start experimenting, and you should do that now, while you are still in college. Do not wait until this is all over before you start learning about various careers and all. How awful would it be if you graduated, got that full-time job and then realized you despise the industry or field?

Better to start learning about those things now while you have time.

How do you go about that in the age of a global epidemic? Here are a few ideas:

• You pay a ton of money to go to college, right? Start taking advantage of all the things you are already paying for. Hit up the career office and ask about different jobs. Ask the alumni relations people if they can introduce you to alums who you could communicate with.

• Talk to your professors and ask them about their fields of study. You know, not during class time. Afterward. Ask for their advice. They will freaking love it. And when you have them feeling all good about doing positive stuff, ask them to intro you to their friends. Also: Reach out to profs even if you aren’t in their classes if they have backgrounds that are related to your ambitions.

• Get on social media and track folks down. Start building relationships – even virtually – before you need to lean on those relationships. Start establishing a reputation by asking questions, reacting and interacting with people. Start firming up that identity you want. Create it now so that you can tear it all down and start over if things go sideways.

The reality is that you will likely reinvent yourself multiple times over the course of your life.

Start playing around now and begin that process.

The best piece of advice I think I could ever give is this:

Do not rely upon anyone else, ever. Do it yourself.

You are trying to achieve your dreams, right? Your dreams. Not anyone else’s. No one will ever care more about your dreams than you will.

So step up, take charge and make those dreams come true.

I spent the summer of 2010 in London with a group of students and we created a print music magazine – plus three live blogs – from scratch. None of us knew what we were doing (and half the kids barely cared about the music project while we were in London). We pushed through, mostly because the students had gathered so much awesome stuff – words, images, video, etc.

I showed that finished glossy magazine to some friends back home and they said, “This is great. We should have something like this for Philly.”

Within days, we had the URL, social media handles and a media kit. I held an open session for folks who might want to participate in a community-oriented project created by artists and music-lovers, for artists and music-lovers.

We had no money. We talked about asking the university to sponsor us but that would give the suits control over what we produced. We thought about corporate sponsors but that was against everything we wanted to achieve.

So we ventured off on our own. And by we, I mean me. Because I funded the first issue, using around $3,000 I picked up doing some side work.

Creating the inaugural issue was rough, as I did all the ad sales, editing, design work and distribution, as well as some writing and photography. But holding that finished product in my hands? Holy cow. It was the most amazing feeling ever.

The 26 issues that followed became easier and easier, but each was a grind.

By never relying upon others to assist us, we never had to compromise who we were. And we were never let down when people failed us.

You don’t need to start a print magazine to make an impact. You don’t need to spend any money at all to have a voice in the world. You can get started via YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, WordPress, Tik Tok and a gazillion other ways to get your stuff out there.

Somewhere online, you should have the best of who you are, a virtual portfolio, whether you aspire to be a a researcher, real estate agent, stock broker, journalist or anything else. Own your space online.

Get that started today. That’s how you begin planning your future.

The world is super messed up right now and it’s hard to feel good about anything.

Things will get better. The 1918 flu took about three years to be eradicated and science is much better now. A vaccine will, hopefully, be out and available in a year or so.

Where will you be then? How prepared will you be to start running with the ball at that point?

Catch your breath. Breathe deeply. And then harness your anger and frustration. Make something happen.

If you do the right things now – primarily taking control of what you can take control of – you will be sitting pretty for the massive recovery that will occur.

Yeah, everything sucks today.

But think about how grand things could be tomorrow.