It Happens.

I experienced two things in the past three months that greatly affected my life- my boyfriend and I broke up and I was fired.

Where is this going?

I think relationships and careers are parallel. The right person and the right career are something we search for during our lives. We want to find the right person to make us happy and the right job that we enjoy doing. We want to find someone and something we have passion for and in which we believe. We want to fill a void, serve a purpose and make someone smile.

So are break-ups and terminations something we must endure to find the right person and the right career path? I mean, who gets it right on the first try anyway?

These experiences are fundamental to our existence. Our lives are molded by our relationships and opportunities and what we do with them creates our character.

It is all about the learning, about the experience and taking something positive with us to the next opportunity. It is about being patient and riding down the road of life remembering where we were, where we want to go and who we met along the way. So break-ups and terminations are not necessarily something bad, but maybe a blessing in disguise (thanks, SH).

So while I sat there being fired all I could think was that if she had a comb-over, I could be famous.

…and I watched the doors behind her swing open.

Apply and Learn

Experiences in our lives help us understand the obvious life lessons we are taught. Through our lives, we are offered advice from our hairdressers, our parents, our doctors, the media and every other outlet possible. We are inundated with opinions on what is right and what is wrong. We hear these things, but we don’t always understand them or how they relate to us as individuals. It is like saying that we always know the right thing to do, but until we are in the situation, we don’t understand how hard it is to actually do the right thing.

Sometimes we seek advice from friends, family and professionals because we are stuck with decisions. Sometimes we know what is right, but need a push in the right direction. Other times, we are clueless. After receiving the advice, we take it, we evaluate it and sometimes we ignore it.

…And sometimes we reflect back to the advice somewhere down the road when it starts to make sense.

As a child, my parents stressed that I lived a great life…and I did! I had everything I needed and everything I wanted. If I didn’t have what I wanted, I was able to work for it and get it. They told me to not take things for granted and more importantly, do not take people for granted. Although I was lucky, not everyone was as lucky.

I remember watching a fire at a local house when I was about ten. As I stood there watching the flames I thought about how the owner was losing everything. I thought about how hard the owner worked to have a house and everything that filled the rooms. I wondered how things could change so quickly and how we were useless just standing there watching the owner’s life literally, go down in flames. At that moment, my dad grabbed me and I thought I was truly lucky that everything my parents worked for was still standing.

Now more than ever I realize how important it is to treasure everything and everyone. In the blink of an eye a person, an object, an opportunity can be lost. That does not mean we should avoid these things for the fear of loss, but we should embrace them for their existence.

Although at times, we need to let things go, it is the unexpected disappearances that make us feel empty, lost and sometimes discouraged. Seeking solace in the fact that we did everything we could and appreciated our losses before they expired can be what helps us though.

So hearing advice, taking advice and knowing what to do with the advice are all separate entities. If we hear the advice and learn when we can apply it and how to use it in the future, then the advice was not wasted. Every mishap is a step toward understanding who we are and what we want from life…advice is the map guiding us through. Never forget what is heard and be sure to make it into something that is learned.

Debt- the American Way of Living.

So here is the question I raise… “How much value would you place on your education?”

Here I am. One and a half years out of college and have accumulated student loan bills equaling close to $1,000/month for the next 20 years! What did I get for that kind of money?

Well, first and foremost, my friends are what I carry as my most important benefit. My friends from undergrad and my number one, most favorite friend from grad school are completely priceless…

But besides the people and the friendships, what do I have? I have one piece of over-sized paper in a fame (the other is in the mail) that states I completed a four-year degree (and a master’s).

Education gives you a high-paying rewarding career, right? What kind of job do I have? Well, one that definitely does not allow me to pay my student loans and not live at home… or own a car, or take vacations, or better yet, to afford health insurance!

Now yes, I admit that due to credit card companies deceiving a confused, shopaholic 20 year-old that a $10,000 credit card limit is basically free cash, I have more debt than I should at this age (but hey I am an American). I did, however, make a positive stride by taking the advice of an Internet ad and consolidated a few maxed out credit cards. Each month I make that payment so my outlandish shopping, of which is my responsibility does cut into my measly hourly wage, but there isn't much to cut into anyway.

So let’s see, if I didn’t have debt I would be able to afford a car payment and a small mortgage? But what would I eat, could I afford heat, cable, furniture? Probably not.

So what is the answer? Find a better job that pays more? Good luck.

That is something my undergraduate and graduate courses left out of the curriculum. The course on “How to have a job you don’t hate and get paid a decent amount of money to survive without your parents,” must have slipped through the cracks.

What do you think colleges should do? Does any shcool offer classes in learning about life lessons such as getting a job, being financially stable, paying back student loans or how to successfully have a credit card without acquiring $94808540980980938 in debt (according to some statistics I read last fall in the Wall Street Journal, almost all students graduating from a four-year college carry a debt on two or more credit cards. Wow!)?

We go to college with high hopes, dreams of making lots of money and because we are encouraged that this step in life will make our lives better. So what is the real value of our education and what is education missing that we don’t learn until we actually hit the real world?

Welcome to my blog.

Hello! How are you today? My friends call me, Cohen… and you can also refer to me as such if you wish. If not, call me what you would like, but please don’t be too offensive.

This is my blog. I want to blog because I have a lot to say and I think people might be interested in reading about my little life lessons and thoughts that often occupy my mind. They drive me into wondering what others think about these fond curiosities of life and so I encourage responses. I plan to add something new each week and all blogs will be open to discussion so please share your thoughts… and by the way, I tend to be serious, yet sarcastic with a twist of exaggeration and over-the-top emotion. So brace yourself and Blog This! ☺