Earlier this evening, I spoke on part of a panel for the Undergraduate Communications Association at University of Maryland. For one hour, with three other professionals, I discussed how I got my job, a typical day on the job, my experience in communication and one thing I wished to impart to the group. For the first 22 years of my life, I’ve always been in the audience. I never had that cool thing to share at show and tell in grade school and in high school, I didn’t go to Spain over winter break and bring back an authentic poncho. Even in college, I wasn’t the president of some pre-professional club. Hell, I was an English major. I’ve always been nose deep in novels and suffering from the horrible afflictions of writer’s cramp and block, respectively. Needless to say, I never thought less of myself but less of the people who paraded in front of everyone bragging about their success. That was until today, when I got to be one of those people.
It’s a strange feeling realizing that you’ve taken a lot of your life lessons for granted until somebody asks you for them. When I was working with my boss today on these prompts, it made me grasp just how much you can accomplish in a year, and I’m not just talking about drinking 50 new beers in two and a half months. A lot of people are used to dismissing what they’ve done as ‘not important’, ‘menial’ or ‘beneath them’. I’m not saying I inspired the kids to reach for the stars and thank everyone who ever believed in them. There was no ‘oh captain, my captain’ Robin Williams Dead Poets’ Society moment. That would have been awesome. Although if the kids stood on their desks, they would have been taller than me and I would have lost my dominance. Furthermore, I didn’t run the session like Michael Scott did in that episode of the Office, “Business School”. I so desperately wanted to rip some textbook in half and say “You cannot learn from books. Replace these pages with life lessons, and then, you will have... a book... that is worth its weight in gold. I know these are expensive, but the lesson is priceless”.
But I’m not inspirational, really. The only thing I was able to impart is to remain humble, which might be a good life lesson. Everybody has something to offer, whether you’ve worked at CNN for ten years like the man on my left did or was part of the creation team for HOT 99.5 like the woman on my right was. The most important thing I took from today was that you could be working for 40 years and you’ll share the same advice as someone who’s worked for 1 year. Or they may have cheated off my notes. Those bastards. Maybe we’re just saying what we think is the right thing to say. I still don’t get the deal with Twitter even though everyone but me touted it.
Anyways, my point is, you’re all special. Don’t listen to Tyler Durden. You are a beautiful and unique snowflake. Well, you're still the same decaying organic matter as everything else but that doesn’t make your time on this planet any less special. So to all my friends who have been working for a few months, years, decades or are still looking for employment: don’t stop learning, ever. Even this paltry blog has helped my business writing. Everything you do now is important to you later and even though I’m tiny, I have big beliefs in you. Don’t dismiss anything you do or pick up along the way. Like those weird references in Family Guy, it can always come up to be relevant in the future.
And *this* is what I should have said to the 25% of the students who were listening to me. And to the other 75% who were texting and looking at porn on their laptops (don’t think I didn’t notice you!), I hope that you enjoyed that free pizza because it’s the last good meal you’ll get before you’re on food stamps for not even trying to get a job.
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