What I've learned
"As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it's harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. You'll fight with your best friend. You'll blame a new love for things an old one did. You'll cry because time is passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose someone you love. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you've never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back. Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin."
It took me until today at 2:00 AM to realize something valuable: I have learned more outside the classroom than inside the classroom in college. College isn't about calculating quick ratios or examining the 35 hidden meanings behind two sentences that Shakespeare wrote. It's about going out to Chili's with 15 of your closest fraternity brothers and having a smile on your face the whole time. It's about hanging out with people like Shawn at 2 AM on a Sunday night just chilling, talking about life in general. It's about noticing that someone, at one point in their life, was going through the exact same feelings as you and can relate to you. Screw Marketing 325; I can get a better education from Life Lessons 101 that happens off campus in the class called Life.
Directly jacking this concept from Jackie's profile, This is what I've learned:
Being the guy that jokes around constantly can be a curse and a blessing. On one hand, when things are going well, it's a great feeling to have the ability to have an entire room rolling in laughter. Few things beat that. However, when you're not in a good mood and don't want anyone to know about it, it's hard to be the person people expect you to be. It sucks forcing yourself to be light-hearted when laughing is the furthest thing from your mind. However, I hate making other people feel sad just because I'm not having a great day so most of the time I'll be my sarcastic self to please people and move on.
Being Greek is amazing. Yeah, I understand I'm going to take shit for this from some people that read this. Oh well. It was simple things like today when I played soccer at noon against Sig Ep and football at 4 against Sigma Chi. My freshman year, playing other fraternities was just another sporting contest for me against a team where I knew no one. Now, thanks to being a leader in FIJI and on IFC, I not only know the names of guys I'm playing against, but I can tell you a lot about them. I've gone to lunch with some of them, had lunch with some, partied with some, talked business with some, and just hung out with some in the middle of an afternoon. The connections I've made are unreal. I know girls from every sorority, guys from every fraternity, and it's just fun walking through campus knowing I'm always going to run into someone, usually multiple people, that I know. For this being a 16,000 student campus, that's not a small feat.
The coming together of a group of people for a common cause can do wonders. I saw the old Beta Theta Pi house located at 900 W. Riverside Ave. this past February before Pig Dinner. It was my first time touring what I knew would be my home for the next two years of my life a.k.a. the duration of my Ball State experience. I'm not going to lie: I had second thoughts about my decision after looking around for 10 minutes. Holes in the walls. Shattered glass everywhere. Windows boarded up. Toilets ripped out of the ground. Mirrors destroyed by baseball bats. Beer cans in every room. Rooms the size of closets it seemed. I remember thinking, "What the hell did I get myself into?" I was assured Ball State would take care of the heating, cooling, windows, doors, and plumbing, but the rest was up to us. One summer, 6 work weekends, a infinite blood, sweat, and hard work put in by the Beta Sigma Chapter of Phi Gamma Delta (grads and undergrads alike). All of the sudden, the holes are gone. The glass is picked up. New windows are fresh and clean. Toilets are working and secured in the ground. Mirrors are in pristine condition. Our house is alcohol free, and we comfortably fit three people in our room. We live in hottest house on Riverside. This is THE place to be right now if you're Greek...and even if you're not. If I had a dollar for every tour I've given of this place, I'd be a rich man right now. I am PROUD to be a FIJI.
The true test of one's character can be seen when he is presented with a difficult situation. Shit happens. We all have heard it; we all have experienced it. Bad things are going to happen in life; that's just a fact. The question is what do you do to respond to it? Angeline always has a quote up that says "There are only two things you should never complain about: the things you can change and the things you can't." Basically, if you have the power to change something, do it. If you can't change something, then move on with your life and deal with it. Until someone builds a time machine that allows you to go back in the past and redo something that you regret, you're going to have to deal with your mistakes. Hindsight is 20/20, but having foresight is invaluable. I'm convinced that learning to deal with negative situations and turn them somehow into positives is the key to surviving life. Every single second of every single day you are on this planet is a learning experience. With every tick of the clock, you may be closer to your next failure, or maybe your next success. If you learn to deal with unfavorable situations though, life itself is a true success. And for that, you can not complain about.
Lastly, love hurts. Badly. It's hard to break up with someone, but it's harder to be broken up with. It's easy to tell yourself everything's going to be all right, but it's easier to want to throw in the towel. Things are especially hard when you truly believe deep in your heart that you and someone else were meant to be together and you're not. When you hate being single in college, surrounded by gorgeous co-eds everywhere, that says something. When your head tells you to move on but your heart says otherwise, that's not easy. It's a terrible feeling waking up every morning trying to figure out what exactly went wrong. Where you screwed up. What's wrong with you. Why things didn't work out. It flat out sucks going to parties knowing that no girl you meet can ever seem to measure up to what you once had. It's like the feeling that you've been to the top of Mt. Everest, fell off, suffered serious injuries, and tried to get back into climbing shortly thereafter. Yet, from then on out, every mountain you climb seems insignificant because you know that you can make it to the top of the tallest mountain there is. Ascending to the top of K2 or Mt. McKinley is nice, but you feel like you're settling. The only thing that can truly make you feel home, and that's getting to the top of the best again. Unfortunately, the mountain doesn't want you back, but you still look for the slightest hint possible that it will give you one more chance. Just one more. If you fall again, then fine, it wasn't meant to be. However, if you conquer again, and manage to stay firmly on top, flag planted, smile beaming, you know you've made it. It's the most exhilarating feeling in the world. Yet even that cannot compare to love.
Life is a continuous learning experience. I look forward to getting my education tomorrow...
It took me until today at 2:00 AM to realize something valuable: I have learned more outside the classroom than inside the classroom in college. College isn't about calculating quick ratios or examining the 35 hidden meanings behind two sentences that Shakespeare wrote. It's about going out to Chili's with 15 of your closest fraternity brothers and having a smile on your face the whole time. It's about hanging out with people like Shawn at 2 AM on a Sunday night just chilling, talking about life in general. It's about noticing that someone, at one point in their life, was going through the exact same feelings as you and can relate to you. Screw Marketing 325; I can get a better education from Life Lessons 101 that happens off campus in the class called Life.
Directly jacking this concept from Jackie's profile, This is what I've learned:
Being the guy that jokes around constantly can be a curse and a blessing. On one hand, when things are going well, it's a great feeling to have the ability to have an entire room rolling in laughter. Few things beat that. However, when you're not in a good mood and don't want anyone to know about it, it's hard to be the person people expect you to be. It sucks forcing yourself to be light-hearted when laughing is the furthest thing from your mind. However, I hate making other people feel sad just because I'm not having a great day so most of the time I'll be my sarcastic self to please people and move on.
Being Greek is amazing. Yeah, I understand I'm going to take shit for this from some people that read this. Oh well. It was simple things like today when I played soccer at noon against Sig Ep and football at 4 against Sigma Chi. My freshman year, playing other fraternities was just another sporting contest for me against a team where I knew no one. Now, thanks to being a leader in FIJI and on IFC, I not only know the names of guys I'm playing against, but I can tell you a lot about them. I've gone to lunch with some of them, had lunch with some, partied with some, talked business with some, and just hung out with some in the middle of an afternoon. The connections I've made are unreal. I know girls from every sorority, guys from every fraternity, and it's just fun walking through campus knowing I'm always going to run into someone, usually multiple people, that I know. For this being a 16,000 student campus, that's not a small feat.
The coming together of a group of people for a common cause can do wonders. I saw the old Beta Theta Pi house located at 900 W. Riverside Ave. this past February before Pig Dinner. It was my first time touring what I knew would be my home for the next two years of my life a.k.a. the duration of my Ball State experience. I'm not going to lie: I had second thoughts about my decision after looking around for 10 minutes. Holes in the walls. Shattered glass everywhere. Windows boarded up. Toilets ripped out of the ground. Mirrors destroyed by baseball bats. Beer cans in every room. Rooms the size of closets it seemed. I remember thinking, "What the hell did I get myself into?" I was assured Ball State would take care of the heating, cooling, windows, doors, and plumbing, but the rest was up to us. One summer, 6 work weekends, a infinite blood, sweat, and hard work put in by the Beta Sigma Chapter of Phi Gamma Delta (grads and undergrads alike). All of the sudden, the holes are gone. The glass is picked up. New windows are fresh and clean. Toilets are working and secured in the ground. Mirrors are in pristine condition. Our house is alcohol free, and we comfortably fit three people in our room. We live in hottest house on Riverside. This is THE place to be right now if you're Greek...and even if you're not. If I had a dollar for every tour I've given of this place, I'd be a rich man right now. I am PROUD to be a FIJI.
The true test of one's character can be seen when he is presented with a difficult situation. Shit happens. We all have heard it; we all have experienced it. Bad things are going to happen in life; that's just a fact. The question is what do you do to respond to it? Angeline always has a quote up that says "There are only two things you should never complain about: the things you can change and the things you can't." Basically, if you have the power to change something, do it. If you can't change something, then move on with your life and deal with it. Until someone builds a time machine that allows you to go back in the past and redo something that you regret, you're going to have to deal with your mistakes. Hindsight is 20/20, but having foresight is invaluable. I'm convinced that learning to deal with negative situations and turn them somehow into positives is the key to surviving life. Every single second of every single day you are on this planet is a learning experience. With every tick of the clock, you may be closer to your next failure, or maybe your next success. If you learn to deal with unfavorable situations though, life itself is a true success. And for that, you can not complain about.
Lastly, love hurts. Badly. It's hard to break up with someone, but it's harder to be broken up with. It's easy to tell yourself everything's going to be all right, but it's easier to want to throw in the towel. Things are especially hard when you truly believe deep in your heart that you and someone else were meant to be together and you're not. When you hate being single in college, surrounded by gorgeous co-eds everywhere, that says something. When your head tells you to move on but your heart says otherwise, that's not easy. It's a terrible feeling waking up every morning trying to figure out what exactly went wrong. Where you screwed up. What's wrong with you. Why things didn't work out. It flat out sucks going to parties knowing that no girl you meet can ever seem to measure up to what you once had. It's like the feeling that you've been to the top of Mt. Everest, fell off, suffered serious injuries, and tried to get back into climbing shortly thereafter. Yet, from then on out, every mountain you climb seems insignificant because you know that you can make it to the top of the tallest mountain there is. Ascending to the top of K2 or Mt. McKinley is nice, but you feel like you're settling. The only thing that can truly make you feel home, and that's getting to the top of the best again. Unfortunately, the mountain doesn't want you back, but you still look for the slightest hint possible that it will give you one more chance. Just one more. If you fall again, then fine, it wasn't meant to be. However, if you conquer again, and manage to stay firmly on top, flag planted, smile beaming, you know you've made it. It's the most exhilarating feeling in the world. Yet even that cannot compare to love.
Life is a continuous learning experience. I look forward to getting my education tomorrow...