Escape the Mundane + Experience the Remarkable

How College Ruined My Life and What You Can Learn from My Mistakes

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Perspective

Sixty-eight thousand four hundred seventy-two.

Awfully large number… I’ll see if numerically helps:

68,472

Nope. Still large.

68,472… 68,472… 68,472…

Shoot, it doesn’t get smaller after repeating. Ugh!

So what is this number? It’s not my favorite number, that’s for sure. Actually, this number is the amount of student loan debt I accrued over my three years in college. 3 years = $68,472 … whoah! That’s roughly $62 a day, every day for three solid years.

The Debt Snowball

Before getting into it, let’s first travel back to my 18th year of life. I have a thriving business (I started when I was 12) implementing technology in residences & offices, as well as designing websites for businesses. I’m maintaining a 3.9 Advanced Honors GPA without any effort. And I have zero debt. Basically, life is good.

Having grown up as a minority from an Indian reservation along with a superior ACT score, I am besieged by college recruiters. From Ivy leagues to west coast universities, I truly have the pick of any school in the nation. But being a nervous teenager leaving my loving home for the first time, I choose the best private college within a half-day’s driving distance. And I love it. New friends, new town, new everything… College life is for me.

Fast-forward to 4 months later. I find myself in a seemingly endless line waiting to sell back my books from a successful first semester… After an absurd couple of hours in line, I’m up! From a wave of seller’s remorse, I keep my Intro to Psych textbook as well as my Econ book out of sheer interest in the subjects. But I decide to ditch the Middle East History book and an overpriced piece of crap that is my Business Computing book. Or so I thought.

Apparently history changes because the college didn’t renew my history book, which means they wouldn’t buy it back. But that’s understandable, there’s a lot going on over there and times are changing.

But the real kick in the pants?

They would not accept the Business Computing book due to a campus wide Microsoft Office upgrade…

Which means I spent the past semester force-fed outdated information.

My Educational Catharsis

Two days later – heartbroken from the realization in the bookstore – I return home for the winter break. There I reconnect with my older brother, Frank, who knowingly or unknowingly changes my life forever. A simple gesture, yet with powerful effects, he gives me an audiobook. And no, not a fictional book about vampires and elves. He gives me How to Win Friends and Influence People. And a complete paradigm shift ensues.
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Appreciating the Small Things of Life

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Minimalism

laundry day

Since giving away everything, I currently own 6 shirts, 2 pairs of jeans, 3 pairs of shorts and a handful of other clothing.

Yesterday I was down to my last clean set of clothes. And faced with my usually dreaded act of needing to do laundry.

But this time was different. It wasn’t a chore. It wasn’t annoying.

It was enjoyable.

Yes, you heard that correctly. Doing laundry was enjoyable.

Why was this?

This is tough to answer. And coming from a guy who used to pay a lot of money weekly to have the laundry done professionally, I’ve put a lot of thought into why I was happy to do laundry.

My conclusion?
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I Simply Want You to be Happy

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Perspective

I was chatting over the phone with one of my clients the other day and something profound happened. I truly realized why I’m on this planet:

I’m here to make YOU happy.

And no, not through flattery or other rah-rah bullshit you see from some of these self-help gurus.

My place is to help you create an extraordinary life. To imagine beyond your wildest dreams, what is achievable in the world. To break you out of your shell and explore the impossible.

From here on out, I am devoting my life to making You happy.

But how can I make someone happy? No person can make someone do anything without coercion. And according to tv crime dramas, that never ends well.

Alright, I should reword my passion:

Helping You Achieve Happiness

First, let’s explore what happiness is, or actually what happiness isn’t. A shit-eating grin is not happiness. Success is not happiness.

In reality, the preconceived notions of happiness are myths.
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Disagree? Talk to the Hand

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Mentality

We all have disagreements. It’s inevitable. But understanding how to civilly solve them is often lost in the mix. So let’s take a look at exactly what a dispute is – in example form:

Imagine you and I are standing face-to-face and someone else holds a hand up between us.

With the palm towards you, they ask you to describe it. I’d assume you would have an easy time. You’d see all of the intricacies of the hand. The love line, the childhood scars, everything.

Now, what if they ask you to describe the back of their hand? With their palm still towards you, it would be impossible. You can assume they have fingernails, knuckles and such. But you wouldn’t see the tiny details. It’s facing me and only I can describe it. And until you were able to see the back of the hand, you’d have no idea what I see. Nor could I tell you what the palm looks like.

We are both looking at a hand, yet we both see something completely different.

The moral of the story here is that when we have a disagreement with someone, we must realize that we are simply seeing a different angle of the same problem.

So remember…

You’re looking at the same hand. How can you see the other side?

Louis C.K. Puts Things into Perspective

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Minimalism

There’s a lot of pessimism right now in the media and amongst most folks. It seems everywhere I look something bad is happening in the world. Sometimes, we just need to take a step back and put things in perspective. We’ve all got to realize the world is much better than it seems.

But instead of me ranting on, I’m going to let the funnyman Louis C.K. take the mic: