While everyone else is hopping aboard the train of life, I'm stuck at the station.

Dear Mean,

Let me ask you some questions, some questions you didn’t think to ask yourself before you taunted me and made me feel like a pathetic loser. Do you think it was my dream as a young child to “grow up, graduate from a top-ranked college, and then be unable to find a job and move back in with my parents? The answer is no. I know you think it is funny to tease me about my circumstances. To you, it is just harmless kidding when you laugh at me for my inability to live on my own. But to me, it is a continual reminder that there must be something wrong with me.

Do you think I planned to be living with my parents, bouncing from temp job to temp job, when I was well into my 20s? Believe it or not, I didn’t move away for college, bust my ass off in college working so I could gain some independence from my parents, just so I could end up back under their roof with no job and no prospects after graduating. Myself, and the thousands of other recent college grads who have moved back home are not exactly living the life we dreamed.

However, I have tried very hard to make the best out of my situation. I volunteer through my church, I take unpaid internships, and I have served hours at my local United Way and other non-profits. As the job search continues, I commit hours of my time to projects that don’t produce monetary benefits in what seems like a never ending struggle to improve my resume so that maybe one of these job applications will finally bring me to a career path.

I don’t spend all my time (or really, nearly enough time) logging volunteer hours. I have taken numerous temporary jobs where I find myself doing things I thought I’d never do and working with people I never thought I’d work with. There have been jobs I’ve loved, and jobs I’ve hated, but I don’t ever regret the opportunities I’ve had.

You may laugh at me because you think it is funny I still live at home with my parents and because, yes, my parents do give me chores and expect them to be done before I go out, but the truth is I’m not alone in my situation. Sure there are plenty of people who marry young, start a family, and live a comfortable suburban life like you when they are in their 20s, but more often these days we are struggling to find a job, we are holding off on marriage until our college debt has been paid off, and we are being forced to come to terms with the fact that our life is not going how we planned.

Am I where I thought I’d be at age 25 when—as a child—I dreamed dreams and made plans for my future? No. Did I imagine my life would look comparable to your life at this point: married, career, family, comfortable middle class lifestyle? Yes. But you know what, things don’t always turn out the way we planned and the only thing we can do about that is accept the hand we have been dealt. It is not fair for you to laugh at me because my life has taken a different turn.

“Why you gotta be so mean?”

Signed,

GenY Loser

Weeds.

Let's be honest, sometimes life sucks.

You spend a majority of your life working toward something (say for example, a college degree) believing that once this thing has been attained you'll expereince nothing but smooth sailing. Then reality hits and you realize you have been chasing a lie.

In 2008 we graduated from the University of California, Berkeley believing the last 22 years of life had prepared us well for the "real world." Two and a half years later we are unemployed and forced to wonder what we worked so hard for.

However, when life doesn't go the way you plan you have a chance to discover new things. With every twist in the road you have the opportunity to choose how you will take this new journey, is the glass half-empty, or half-full?



In the summertime, the hills behind my parent's house blossom with weeds covered in little yellow flowers. The bright yellow buds and green stems bring color and vibrancy to an otherwise brown and dull chaparral landscape. They thrive, despite the notoriously polluted air and the dry hard earth. As the summer progresses, the plant spreads and begins to crowd the path. Soon the once beautiful flowers become annoying weeds whose throne branches scrap your legs if you aren’t careful as you pass.

The yellow flowers grow in stark contrast to the monochromatic plants lining the path. In the summer when water is scarce and the soil is hard and dry, the yellow flowers blossom despite the shortage of nutrients. On the one hand, the flowers represent something deceptively beautiful. A weed amongst the other plants, it symbolizes how something beautiful can be bad.

Yet, the flowers also serve as a reminder that even the things in life you don’t want, the weeds that start to crowd the path and make it difficult to traverse, can add something beautiful to the journey.

Is the glass half-empty or half-full? Do the weeds block your path or make it more interesting and beautiful?

Life is a journey, where that journey takes you depends on how you take it.

-CC and AJ