I am Jim Neidinger. I'm 20 years old. I live, work, and study at Ohio State. I am from a small suburb of Cleveland. Its called Brecksville. Diversity doesn't exist there. Middle class, white families do. Naturally I have a mother. A father. I have a stepdad too. I have two older brothers. Well, technically one is a stepbrother, but he's been a brother to me since age 5. He's getting married in 6 months. At 22. Insane. My brother graduated from Ohio Northern University. He studied mechanical engineering. I am proud of him. He was a member of Theta Chi. I have spent my entire life making sure I was better than him. At everything. I am an asshole. My mom is difficult. She is opinionated and stubborn. But she is the hardest working person I know. She has overcome adversity. She micromanages my life. I have made her cry. More often than I am comfortable with. I am not as good of a son as I would like to be. My dad is the most intelligent person I know. My dad is the least driven person I know. My dad frustrates me. My dad is a source of happiness. My stepdad is stern. I hated him growing up. He has made me the gentleman that I am today. He taught me values. I have a dog. His name is Calvin. He loves bananas. It's weird. I play the piano. I cook. I am damn good at it. I eat. I love to eat. I am incredibly proud of my parents for everything they have provided me. I love family. I am close to my extended family. Life is fragile. Life is short. I like laughing. I like sushi. I like sushi with cucumber.
I am studying Chinese and Finance. I have no idea why. I love people. I love social interaction. I have no idea what my purpose is. I have no idea what I want to do with my life. I live with 5 other men. Stress the word, MEN. They smell. They are dirty. The house is not clean. The bathrooms are disgusting. I love them. My room is my sanctuary. It is clean. It is organized. I have a self diagnosed slight case of obsessive compulsive disorder. I love grammar. I love spelling. I love words. Tyler Blair made at least 4 mistakes in his blog. I winced at each one. I work at the Union. I have worked there since September. Working there makes me happy. I thoroughly enjoy the people. One of those people is Tyler. In 7 months he has greatly impacted my life. He has helped mold me into who I am today. I am grateful. Brownie points. Lots. I also work as a Computer Science and Engineering consultant. I hate it. It's difficult. I am bored of talking about myself. This is called stream of consciousness. I love it. I joined Delta Tau Delta for two reasons. Howard Harcha was my RA. My brother was in one. I needed to one up him. Why I joined a fraternity is unimportant. Why I am still there is important. I believe in my fraternity. I believe in it as a molder of men. Not necessarily a molder of good men. I believe in its ability to positively impact the lives of everyone it comes in contact with. I am proud of my fraternity. I am discouraged by parts of my fraternity.
Truth, Courage, Faith, Power. I believe in respect, honesty, and constructive criticism. I am honest. To a fault. I am a hippy. I want world peace. I hate confrontation. I have ridiculously high standards. Everyone in my life has disappointed me. I believe in love. I am selfless. I put my all into everything. Sometimes too quickly. Sometimes it sucks. I am passionate about educating underprivileged children. I want to eradicate educational disparities that are prevalent in many areas of the world. I believe in every child having an equal opportunity. Every child is a blank canvas. Or a ball of clay, if you will. Life makes us who we are. And we should be proud of it.
I want to be happy. I know it is selfish. But others happiness is part of what makes me happy. So it isn't that selfish.
Jim, I literally had to get my glasses out to read your post. Maybe a larger font... please.
ReplyDeleteSo, I thought a lot about this last night (for my own sake as well). And I came to two conclusions:
ReplyDelete1. I know I said earlier that wanting to be happy is not selfish. But when I said that, I didn't really have a reason to say that... I didn't really have anything to back that statement up. But I realized last night, the following: You can't expect others around you to be happy if you aren't happy yourself. Congruence. Value-Congruence. You have to walk the talk. If you want to make others happy, then you need to model the way. The first step to leadership is knowing yourself (consciousness of self) - being confident and sure of yourself, and happy, is not selfish, because you need that in order to have followers and to practice leadership. And the world needs more leadership. So, wanting to be happy then, can't be a selfish thing... right?
That being said though, it is still okay (seriously) to not know what makes you happy at this point in your life. Thats what these next few years are all about. Even though the uncertainty can, suck.
2. I think you need to spend some time thinking about why your passionate about educating underprivileged children. This isn't the first time you have mentioned that passion, and lets be honest: the world needs more people working toward ending that disparity. If you are passionate about that, and if you truly believe in that - and since the world needs people like that - I think your purpose is meant to be focused around that topic. I don't want to say "that is your purpose" because its still not that easy, but I think it warrants some reflection... and I think you should start doing some hands-on local service in this area on a regular basis to see how it makes you feel while your actively doing it.
Just my latest thoughts. Cause I've been thinking about this topic myself too a lot lately.