It Must Be Hard To Be A Woman At The Gym...

I have started going to the gym more frequently and I have noticed something. The TVs in front ot the aerboic machines are tuned to only two channels: E! and the Food Network.

It's hard enough for me as a dude to stare at Dinner, Drive-Ins and Dives without feeling like a sad sack. I can't imagine what it's like to be one of the women on the elyptical machine, bike or treadmill who are trying to be healthier and feel better about themselves. They are being forced to stare at rich fatty foods or watch one of the 13 shows on E! that feature a Playboy playmate. It's as if the managment at the gym is saying, "thanks for coming to the gym, ladies. Now who is ready to feel bad about themselves?" Dear gym, please change the channel before you give them (and me) an eating disorder.

Thanks.

Just An Observation...

Has anyone else noticed that Twitter has been uniquely successful at attracting young black users. I mean if you look at hash tag trends on twitter they seem to be dominated by tweets from young black people.

Even prominent black celebrities get in on the action (I almost never see a white celebrity use a hash tag meme in a tweet). Very interesting.

I would love to find out if (and why) black youth prefer Twitter is preferred over Facebook.

Not Feeling Great...

I can feel the tightness in my chest. Like someone living inside of me is giving me a merciless bear-hug, and not in a loving way. It feels painful and make my chest feel heavy. It's not a feeling that is uncommon to me but the source of the feeling is.

In the past my emotional downward spirals, my unhappiness, were relationship based. Almost always I felt resent towards others who were in happy relationships or I felt doomed to a life of loneliness when I was rejected. Other times I felt doomed because of my own self-perceived inadequacies and how they made me afraid to even pursue a relationship.

But that's not whats causing me to feel this way now. I've felt sad/ambivalent/depressed for the better part of a month. I feel trapped. As the school year ends I think, 'my God, here comes an 11th year of living on a college campus. An 11th year of opening a building, dealing with drunk students, weeknight meetings, dealing with student in crisis, the same training, diversity discussions and on and on and on'.

10 years ago I thought I was stepping on a road. Now it feels like I just ended up stepping onto a treadmill. Never moving, always repeating the same thing over and over.

The truth is, I just don't care anymore. I don't love my job anymore and that makes me feel terrible. It makes me feel terrible because I live were I work and so every second of everyday is a constant reminder of how I feel. I feel terrible because other people can tell that I am unhappy and I don't want to burden others or have them affected by it.

I feel terrible because I feel guilty about being that employee. The kind who is unhappy and starts going through the motions and everyone can tell doesn't want to be there. I love my boss and I love my co-worker. I consider them friends and wonderful people but I can't change the way I feel about this job and it makes me feel like a horrible person knowing that I am going to have a negative impact on them.

I feel terrible because even though I feel this way about my work I know I have caring and supportive people around me and I still feel this way.

What makes it even worse are the lingering doubts. Is it really the job or am I just depressed? What options do I have? I can find another job but not one as financially lucrative as this. How will I find a job that can pay for my rent, my car and help me keep my grandfather in his home? If I find a job and move back home (with my mother) will I be happy? Will having a regular 9-5 make everything all right, or will I just come to resent my family for how their actions and the burden of obligation have led me to a series of less than favorable choices?

Maybe the problem is that I suffer from an overwhelming need for stability. All I have ever wanted in my life has been stability. The problem is, I fear, that I have confused stability with routine. I'm used to not being happy - that's my routine. I'm used to having to help out my family - it's my routine. I'm used to being alone - it's my routine. I've become complacent about the things that cause me pain, grief, sadness and hopelessness. It's easy to say that I don't love my job anymore. The scariest part is that I don't know what I love at all. I feel empty inside.

The few moments of happiness I get are spending time with my friends. Sharing a meal with them, going to the movies, going over there homes and chatting. The thought of leaving these people behind to start an uncertain future is scary and disheartening.

I hope that as in the past this feeling fades. I hope that I come out out of this funk and find a renewed sense of hope; but for now I will just have to wrestle with the doubt, the fear and the sadness.

Sometimes It's Nice To Disconnect...

I had a great weekend. I got to spend time with people I love and care about deeply. On Friday night I drove to Irvine with three friends and we had a great time watching another one of my friends perform in his men's choir. 

I spent Saturday with another couple of friends. We had dinner and went to a comedy show in L.A. Sunday, I got to spend some quality time with family.

However, I think the most underrated part of my weekend was a result of a mistake I made. I knew that I was going to be staying over my friends' apartment after the comedy show on Saturday night. However, I forgot to pack my cell phone charger. I tried to preserve the battery as best as I could but the phone died around 12:30pm on Sunday afternoon. All of Saturday night and Sunday morning I wrestled with the idea of just buying an extra battery for the phone. Alas, my pocketbook won out and I decided that I could live without my phone for a while. Not only did I survive without it, but I actually enjoyed being without it.

Before I continue I want to explain myself a bit. I am not saying that this 10 hours has turned me off to technology or the interconnectedness it brings us. In fact it may have done the opposite. On Friday night my friend Gina posited that the people who aggressively reject using Twitter, Facebook or blogging are basing their stance on a misguided principle. They see technology as a way for people to communicate about the most mundane aspects of their life. Those who reject these forms of technology only see people who use our interconnectedness to live out every single aspect of their day to day lives out in the public, hoping of garner some kind of attention. To be fair, some of those folks do exist. However, in between those who wholly reject the interconnectedness that technology brings and those who view it as a way to remind us of what they had for breakfast, there is a majority of us who hope to use this technology to have conversations, spread ideas, humor, culture and ultimately learn from one another.

So after making a case for why technology is so great, why am I writing a post about how I enjoyed being disconnected from the world for 10 hours. When I got back home I began to charge my phone. After about twenty minutes I turned it on. Then came the notifications:

3 Missed Calls

New Voicemail

New Text Messages

New Personal E-mail

New Work E-mail

New Facebook Message

I was about to go to through them when I stopped myself and thought, 'I don't have to do this right now. These messages are all probably a few hours old and I didn't respond to them then yet the world didn't fall apart. These things can wait.' I realized then that just because I can be connected at all times doesn't mean I have to be connected at all times. I had effectively burned myself out. I realized that when someone sent me YouTube clip I wasn't thinking, 'awesome!'. No, Instead I was thinking, 'ugghh, why won't this person leave me alone! Now I have to watch this because I am going to go into work tomorrow and this person is going to ask if I watched the clip'.

I ceased being connected and had begun feeling saturated. Everything felt like a homework assignment that I had to do right then and there. Worse than that, the homework assignments just kept coming and coming. For me personally, I had lost sight of how great the internet and technology can be. I had become overwhelmed and overburdened by them. I had become inundated with information and messages and email and the feeling that I had to respond to all this incoming information and stimulation. But after those few short hours I realized the importance of finding time to be disconnected. There is something to be said for turning of my phone, for not ehcking email, for not having a computer screen in front of me. There is something nice about being at a concert and not feeling the urge to have to look at a work email that just landed in my inbox or check a text message while I am having dinner with my brother. It was nice to disconnect. It was nice to be fully present around those I cared about and focus on the world around me and not feel as though this larger virtual world was going to interrupt me.

I love that the internet and other technologies allows me to be connected to a world that is larger and more vibrant than any other world I would have know during any other period of recorded history. Yet, this weekend reminded me that absence can make the heart grow fonder. Just because I am connected to a larger world doesn't mean that I am obligated to it. In fact, by disconnecting and focusing on my real time experiences and the smaller world around me I may be able to find something worth sharing with the rest of the world.