WEDNESDAY THOUGHTS: TELEVISION

"When you look into yourself, and you try to talk about what you do, and how you feel, and what you think, you'll be surprised by how many other people feel the same way..."

"I love what I'm doing. I'm very blessed I get to do it."

 

SATURDAY THOUGHTS: IMPRESSIONS

Dear Young Readers, Graduates, and Job Seekers,

No glowing recommendations from the highly respected, or well- connected people you know, will supersede, excuse, explain, or erase your own, self-curated social media content. When the things that others say about you, your potential, discretion, maturity, and professionalism, glaringly contradict what you say about yourself, and how you present yourself (in a public forum), which information do you think a potential supervisor will conclude is the real you—the straight-laced person in the resume, or the careless one, wiling out like a maniac on Facebook? 

Imagine, someone putting their own reputation on the line; passionately lauding your outstanding marksmanship, while you’re shooting yourself in the foot, and flippantly saying it’s irrelevant. Will they continue to vouch for you? Probably not.

By all means, do you; exercise your freedom, but the social media space, IS the new resume. It’s the new Yellow Pages. It is the ground that’s mined for information on everything from how you are going to show up, to how well (or poorly) you communicate. Whether it’s fair or not, social media is where employers, news outlets, and scholarship awarding organizations look FIRST. 

Are you demonstrating that you will be an asset and a good fit, or a liability and an HR nightmare? Is what you post, as a representation of yourself, grossly contrary to the career path upon which you want to embark? Could your own posts—that you defend as harmless, fly, and cute—be considered problematic and inappropriate? 

Look carefully at what you’ve posted. Tell yourself the truth. It’s hard to unsee a thing. It’s also hard to change another person’s perspective. No one has to accept you into their program or workplace—especially if you’re providing them with a myriad of reasons not to. 

Read back what you’ve written, and soberly consider whether your social media content is screaming all of the reasons why that opportunity, job, position, or scholarship you say you want, has been elusive.

THURSDAY THOUGHTS

A lot of anger, confusion, worrying, or fretting about HOW decisions are, or were made, can be nipped in the bud by simply considering WHO’S making the decisions. Whose idea was that? Who signed off on that? Who has/had authority? Who’s representing? Who’s speaking? What do they know, think, prefer, believe, or assume? 

All of THAT will inform you. That will answer your questions. That will explain why THIS inauthenticity, as opposed to THAT reality. Decisions don’t make themselves.

Knowing who’s making the decisions, will make the nonsensical outcomes make sense. It will reveal why excellence was seemingly overlooked, in favor of mediocrity. It will explain striking omissions and obvious exclusions. It will determine why what could have been had, was scrapped, fumbled, or never materialized. 

The results of decisions may be disappointing, lacking, infuriating, wasteful, laughable, or curiously odd, but you have to acknowledge who has the last word, and who’s in charge. Whether they should be, and how they got to be, is another conversation. Who made the decisions, and what are their qualifications to do so, are questions that explain EVERYTHING. 

If the decision makers aren’t efficient, aren’t knowledgeable, are lone wolves, don’t ask questions, don’t know who TO ask, rely on limited or erroneous information, are partial, misinformed, indifferent, delusional, incompetent, arrogant, or disconnected, it will be glaringly reflected in their choices, what they present, champion, and offer. 

THURSDAY THOUGHTS

We walked to Waxie Maxie’s.

We walked back home—north on South Capitol Street, until it turned to Nichols Avenue.

(By the way, Nichols Avenue is now known as MLK. That’s how long ago it was.)

We couldn’t wait to read the liner notes, and put the vinyl on the record player.

We played it over and over, until it skipped.

Then, we took that walk again, to buy another one.

Do we count THAT?

Imagine multiplying that, times everybody else who did the same.

What would the numbers be?

Who would surpass who?

Some things can’t be compared—

I mean you could, but why?

Is it about quality or popularity?

Substance or trends?

Some things required deliberate effort, preceded by great expectation and patience 

Now?

Accidental ease.

Why these silly comparisons and competitions with voices that are silent?

Voices that did more with much less?

Voices that didn’t need correcting or tweaking?

Voices that weren’t afraid of going live?

We walked to hear what those voices had to say

And we’re still listening, today, in new ways they never imagined 

TUESDAT THOUGHTS: TELEVISION

 

“Comedy is how we decorate reality.”

“Just go serve something that you love already. Just go do something you love.”