humanity
The real lives of businessmen, professionals, the everyday man, stay at home parent, healthy lifestyle influencers, and general feel good human stories.
I Write Cuz I Want to Damnit
I have always wanted to start a blog. Always. Ever since I was a wee child, I imagined sitting down and putting my thoughts to paper (or in this case, computer) and sharing them with the world. I always had new ideas for a blog. A blog about animals. A blog about book reviews. Video blogging. Maybe a blog about health. My interests were ever changing, which made it difficult to narrow in on a single topic.
By Rowan Flores7 years ago in Journal
Keep the Change Please
In 1999 I was living in San Diego and working at the National Dispatch center. I began working there in early 1997 and had really done well the first two years. NDC was a text messaging center and my job was to transcribe pre-recorded messages that people left and we would listen to them on our headset while sitting in our little cubicle and then send the message to people's pagers where they got a text message. At the time, this was new technology and it was a huge upgrade from the pager. You got the message on a pager but it had words instead of just a phone number. The pace was fairly slow and I didn't have to deal with the customers directly. I thrived and always got the monthly bonuses. Along with a steady increase in pay, I was fairly happy and had finally moved out of the crappy residential hotels downtown and moved a few miles away uptown in a much nicer placed called studio 619. I was going to the movies regularly, eating out a lot, writing poetry, and going to a writers group. And I was dealing pretty well with being single. I had been taking a sabbatical from dating for two years now. My heart needed the break. Shawna, Jaime, Lisa, Tammy, Rachel and a few others that didn't go far all had taken their toll on me. We had a pretty tight knit group in our section. Ours was small, about 14 of us. The rest of the company had 500 other employees and they took live calls at a very fast pace. They had no time to get to know one another.
By Marc Sander7 years ago in Journal
The Entrepreneur’s Prayer
As I awaken with the gift of yet another day and prepare for the tasks at hand, I offer up this most ardent prayer: I pray for continued clarity of purpose so that I may hold my vision steady and keep my focus on the needs and success of others, which in turn shall bring me my success.
By Rick Beneteau7 years ago in Journal
Why I Work Multiple Jobs
I live in Northern New Jersey. I was raised in a small town in Bergen County, NJ. Everything is super expensive here. You can’t live comfortably unless you’re making six figures. I’m lucky to be making five figures with three jobs. Yes, you read that correctly, I work THREE jobs. PLUS I’m trying to get a small side business going. And it’s not like I spend my money foolishly either. Actually, I hate spending money. I don’t buy anything unless I absolutely have to. My main bills are rent, car payment, car insurance, cell phone, PSE&G, water bill, and Netflix. Yes, I have Netflix. I have neither cable nor WiFi. I have unlimited data on my cell phone and use it has a hotspot to connect my cell phone to my iPad over Bluetooth. I’m not home enough to make good use of a cable plan, so if I feel like watching something, I look on Netflix. Everything in Northern Jersey is expensive; however, I’m reluctant to move out of state. All of the certifications I have are good only in New Jersey. It would be very time consuming and expensive for me to get certifications in another state. I cannot afford to not work. I wouldn’t be able to even afford my car payment if I wasn’t working. So I can’t take the time to get out of state certifications. So instead I stay in New Jersey and I struggle to make ends meet every month. At this point, I’m happy that I can get my bills paid.
By Pamela Dirr7 years ago in Journal
What I Learned from Being a Volunteer Firefighter for 20 Years
I learned that those ghosts have stayed with me. With some, I see their faces, with others, their injuries, and sometimes it’s the friends and family members that watched as we tried everything in our power to alter fate. The trauma I bore witness to over the years and the beautiful souls who passed in my presence and prior to our arrival stay with me.
By Jennifer Grigg7 years ago in Journal
The Ballad of a Boy with a Passion for Storytelling
December 22, 1998. It was a brisk Tuesday evening. I was born in Beth Israel Hospital, located in the Weequahic section of the South Ward in Newark, New Jersey. I was the third child of Helen Jackson and the first and only child of Maliki Yawmi-Deen Raymond.
By savage writer7 years ago in Journal
A Working Woman in Progress
I recently read a study about how procrastination is correlated with low self-esteem. The act of putting off tasks is a result of a self-aggravating belief that the task you produce is representative of you as a person; you believe that your value is dictated by what you create, and in fear that you will make a mistake, you avoid actively completing your work or finding solutions to your problem.
By Sarah Hong7 years ago in Journal
It’s Above Me Now!
We can talk for days and hours - and yes even weeks and months - about "doing the right thing" when it comes to managing diversity in various settings. But will it pay off in "doing the right thing" when it counts (and of course, when the smartphone is videoing the encounter!)?
By David Wyld7 years ago in Journal
Jobless and Only Kinda Depressed
Some people spend their lives chasing goals. They’ll achieve something great and move right on to other greatness. I’m not one of them. I’ve had so few goals in my life. I wanted to do well on my AP tests in high school, at least the ones I thought I could do well on. I wanted to get into my first choice college. It was the only one I applied to fully, so that worked out. I wanted to graduate in June of 2014 and when that wasn’t going to pan out, I decided eh, 2014 at all is good enough. Then, I wanted to buy a house. So finally, here I sit, in the house I own, with my degree dated 2014 from that first choice college that the AP credits didn’t even end up counting into because actually taking the classes is way easier than taking some hard ass tests.
By es .penname7 years ago in Journal
