Monday Motivation- Doing What You Love

Today was my two year anniversary at the company I currently work for, and I can’t say for one minute that I have enjoyed it. Coming out of college in the spring of 2017 I thought for sure all I wanted was to put my head down and grind in corporate America and get rich. It did not take me long to figure out that I did not want that at all. This isn’t to downplay those that do, or those that even enjoy the rigors of corporate America, I would just personally rather saw my dick off. Here is what I have learned in that 3 year period from college to now.

Lets start where almost all great stories start and that is the beginning. I thrived in college. If there was ever a lifestyle that I understood and one that understood me, it was college life. I basically did whatever I wanted. Just lived life everyday with my bestfriends “Rowing the Boat” at Western Michigan University. I was funny, knew how to party, and had rarely any enemies. Back then I assumed I would get good grades, apply for a job in the NFL, work my way through the ranks, and achieve my dream of becoming an NFL general manager. Reality quickly hit on my visit to Dallas for the Cotton Bowl right before my last semester. Western Michigan University playing a Big Ten school, Wisconsin, in a New Years Six bowl. Pure luck that I would be at the school during its greatest year in program history, and there I was with my dad (a fellow alumni of WMU) without a care in the world. The next day was where I could say things started to fall apart for me. I decided to take the bus home from Dallas to Austin so I could go out and party with my friends that made the trip down for the game. That night and the events that lead me to getting on the bus are a story on their own for another time. The bus ride from Dallas to Austin not only was my first encounter with a public bus since High School, but also the first time I encountered an anxiety attack.

Up until this point I thought there was no chance I would ever have to deal with mental health issues. My whole world was closing in on me. The realization that everything I had known for the past 5 years was crashing to an end. All my applications for jobs… nothing. What was my plan? Didn’t really have one anymore. The anxiety attacks and bouts with depression would persists and become more common from here on out. Getting back to Kalamazoo I started noticing things were different. Everything I had previously wanted forever I no longer wanted at all. Going out 5-6 nights a week no longer was appealing. Trying to hook up with random girls at the bar started to seem like a task. I didn’t know what I want and I turned into a huge asshole. What the fuck was I going to do? Was I already a burn out? Where was I going? What did I even want to do? Did I care to do anything? I had not a single clue and before I knew it my whole family was in town for my graduation. I thought being alone and asking myself all these questions was tough. I now had everyone that knew me since birth asking what the fuck I was going to do with my life. I was 23 and just got a degree in Business Management from a top 25 business school in the country. I had no fucking clue.

Two days after an absolute blow out of a graduation party I had everything in a U-Haul and the apartment finally cleaned. No joke, this was an all time party and took two full days to clean up/recover from. It was an abrupt decision but I was on my way to Austin TX to live in my family friends trailer and figure it out I guess. I landed a job at a bank as a branch banker. Straight up fuck that life. I wasn’t a sales guy. Pushing credit cards and different accounts on old ladies? The mental health issues started to really spiral at this point. For a year straight I would sit in this empty ass bank with one sometimes two coworkers and just sit. 7am to 5:30pm. No music. We would see at most 10 people a day. A lot of days it was 0-5 though. I wasn’t hitting any of my numbers and honestly didn’t even know what to do. I didn’t have a manager until the last couple of months anyways. It was a full year of sulking. Working a lot. Earning a little. Not a lot of close friends, if any. Spending my weekends in my one bedroom apartment sleeping and drinking alone. I was 24 and already a shell of myself. If anyone is reading this still at this point, I already know that this isn’t much of a comedy blog. That sucks, its my blog and Im starting it off with how I got to where I am. Get over it.

After a year at the bank I decided to go back into logistics. A job I had done for 2 and a half years in college. At least I was good at it. It helped that my best friend from college happened to get a job at the same company and started the same exact day as me. We didn’t even plan on it. It just happened. Things were starting to look up. I had one of my closest friends, a high paying job, and I was busy. All of a sudden working 60 hour weeks and going out again. Boom, I was fixed and have loved everything ever since that moment… is something I wish I could say. I still wasn’t myself though. All of a sudden I was shy. I cared what people thought. I didn’t want to embarrass myself. Really just scared to be myself. It was only a year into this job that my roommate picked it up and bolted back for Detroit. The job is neither fun nor rewarding. 12 hours a day of getting your ass kicked from all sides. Issues after hours? Its on you. Issues on the weekend? Its on you. Have an opinion? Shut the fuck up and do whatever a manager tells you to do.

That brings me to this past year. Trust me, this is where it comes full circle. I realize this is supposed to be motivational, so let me take you to November 2019. Couldn’t tell you the exact date but I know it was in October. I hit the lowest point to date. It was not fun. Anxiety hit. Depression at a all time high. All these questions rushing through my head. What am I doing with my life? What is my purpose? Am I even capable of feeling normal anymore? Is this how it is forever? Am I just a corporate robot now? It was two months from my 26th birthday. I had no girlfriend, hated my job, and lived in my work partners spare room. That is when things started to change for me mentally. I got so low that I actually started to think to myself “are you a fucking pussy”. “Grow the fuck up” “Nut the fuck up”. It was just three years since I was in complete control of everything around me. All of a sudden the old me was back in my head and it took one question. What makes you happy? What makes me happy is making people laugh. Making peoples day better. Speaking for and inspiring the guys that weren’t the studs in sports, or that were really good looking. I want to talk about sports, and movies, and music. I wanted to debate and compete again. Thats where I started to stop thinking about things and started actually doing things. Maybe I am garbage. Maybe I will never actually make it as a comedian or internet personality, but Im going to give it my all.

So I am sure that at this point youre like “Why the fuck would you take me down this dirt road of how shitty the past three years have been?” The answer is because even though the past three years have been absolutely awful for me mentally, I feel like the only way to really grow and figure out who YOU are is to push yourself to the edge of who YOU absolutely DO NOT want to be. Now, don’t get me wrong this path is not for everyone. I know plenty of people with so little ambition that having a manager ripping their ass everyday is just fine with them for the next 40 years. For me, that was where I had to draw the line. There absolutely is more to this whole thing. You just have to go out and do it.