Budapest, Hungary
The word INTERNSHIP and its prominence in the lives of college students arrives when we arrive to our first class as Freshmen. It reaches daily household, usage status when we reach the Sophomore year, and by the time we are Juniors and Seniors, it becomes the topic of conversations among the majority of us. It is quite annoying; however, this is not being stated due to a lazy attitude or any connotation of that sort.
Perhaps, your situations have been the following: Professors that repeatedly hammer the importance of having an internship in order to obtain any reasonable job out there in the world. They step up on that big shiny soapbox as they explain that their intentions weren't to scare us kids. Their eyes get real big, they pan the audience full of terrified students and kind of apologetically state, "...but I hope I got your attention."
Internships are valuable and do offer so much to us learners of the new trades we aspire to practice. The box that they are placed in seems a bit rigid. It seems as though the "i" word is required to be professional and boring, and that it must be with a company or agency of reputable value.
As you might be too, I'm struggling with my future plan for the summer. I, supposedly, need an internship to reach some sort of success. So, what and who defines what true success is? The skewed American definition would read something like college degree, stable job that includes benefits and promotions, a spouse and kids some day, and hopefully that cookie-cutter house in cute little suburbia. The American Dream.
I have this theory that the term "success" is used entirely too loosely in our society. It developed this past summer when I traveled around Europe for a couple of months. I met some invigorating, adventurous folks at the hostels and around the city. They were all around my age (21). Many of them had taken an undecided amount of time off from school to explore the world and get to know who they are. They were in the process of discovering what life, the one life they were given, means to them. Here in America, this is what we have dubbed as a bum. No job, little money, and no exact plan. Hey, in a couple of years, maybe decades from now, those miniature Christopher Columbuses might be a little more broke than us college graduates or going back to school while we sit in a cubicle every mundane Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. However, the questions of "Who am I?" or "What is my purpose?" that arise in many unexplored "successful" individuals which is a situation that we usually refer to as a mid-life crisis, probably won't be lurking around in their minds. They hung out with the world. They found what they loved and experienced a life-change.
It's sad that we forget to take time to live, to root up everything we know and uncover some things we may not have ever known of ourselves. So where will you go from here? If not to explore the world, explore yourself.
8 comments:
i believe there's quite a bit of mirror-imaging.
i agree with you that our society has slowly changed the definition of a lot of words and symbols in our culture, let alone "success." this here is a HUGE issue. our response to first acknowledging this and then understanding what this all means is vital in our own individual growth and awareness of our "purpose of life." so often, because we are so manipulated here in our country, we find it completely necessary to LEAVE the country. to get out of this terrible-sick society that feeds us an overwhelming amount of temptation. but hasn't there always been temptation? hasn't there always been struggles/trials? what's the real problem? is it people? do we really need to go on an incredible journey 4000 miles away. where are we really going to find our true heart, our soul. isn't that what we're looking for? what other answers could you be searching for-to find on the same earth. every place you visit is still on that same planet. so when are we going to realize that we're the problem? our understanding of who we are, biblically, from God's perspective, from the worldview of Christianity--not a manipulated, american-diluted Christianity--but an authentic, true, educational one. you said-"They found what they loved and experienced a life-change." DID THEY? how much did they actually find? how much more confused to you think they might have become? how much less susceptible are they to a mid-life crisis? where are men's hearts these days? where are womens's? how does this all connect? what's the peanut butter to life's sandwich? there are answers. but will we look for them? or will we continue to get by on the instant gratification this culture has so easily provided. will we continue to submerge ourselves in media, a media that so often takes us away from such "full-thoughts" that you mentioned before, and find ourselves that much farther away from our friends, from our family, from our HEART....
It's so true. There are people wandering around the world. Traveling from place to place, hostel to hostel, monument to monument thinking that they are becoming well-rounded, accomplished, and just a better person. It starts with the core, the origin of who we are. Our Creator, our King has enstilled these curiousities and mysteries of the beauty in life to show Himeself to us. It's a love offering to us I believe. It's lovely. However, some people mistake the splendor of the world as man's own and make their experience glorify themselves instead of the Maker.
So our success is found in who/what?
Ourselves, ancient cities, or perhaps something more lasting, something, someone forever.
i agree with this lemon. there's is such an outrageously profound truth to this american idea. perhaps, we are just a scared nation. it's funny, and quite odd. bc, for example, when we see characters in storylines in movies that possess these qualities and venture out to create and find their destinies, we watch in complete adoration and awe, wishing that we housed these qualities...
Kinsey- I love this! Well said.
Well written. I think I have an answer for you. Success as defined by mainstream America during the 20th century is the attainment of perfect harmony with a consumerist society. To have a wife, two kids, and a house in suburbia is to have built the perfect part to the giant machine of unplanned capitalism. A wife ensures kids, kids ensure a future generation, a house in suburbia insures the acquisition of things, things require that someone make them, and making things is a perfectly reasonable vocation for any self-respecting man/woman who needs to make money to feed themselves and their family.
However, that is not true success as you explain in your entry. True success can only come from a successful outward manifestation of what lies deep within. When you can adapt your outward physical form to represent your inward spiritual self, well, then you've become a success in the true sense of the word. Perhaps we need to see more of the world and experience more in order to understand life and our souls better. After all, both were designed by God, who has seen everything and knows everything, so life and our souls must be much more complicated than we can come to understand in the short time period we are on Earth. When we've explored and discovered--outwardly and inwardly--then it is our job to become what we deem a success. To become what you believe is success is to be a success.
My $0.02...
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