Real Life Notes: Reflections and Strategies for Life After Graduation (The Life Navigator Series) - Softcover

Jedding, Kenneth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0967854555 ISBN 13: 9780967854557

Publisher: Double Rose Books, 2002

Synopsis

This book is for twentysomethings who are asking "What now?" There's information that can help you take a deep breath and get started on the right track, even if you're not exactly sure what track you're on. Real Life Notes offers advice in the areas of career (how to figure out what to do if you don't have a clue; the dynamics of making money; surviving entry-level, and more), Relationships, Perspective and the Parents.

About this title

About the Author

Kenneth Jedding wrote REAL LIFE NOTES: Reflections and Strategies for Life After Graduation to offer people the timeless information which he feels can help them--in some way, shape, or form--go faster, and further. He wrote from his experiences, including those in banking, teaching, living in Europe and Asia, and driving a taxi. He lives with his wife in New York City.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

You did it. You graduated. Congratulations!

Now you get to start the rest of your life. How does it feel?

Exciting?

Terrifying?

I used to think that there was a certain comfort to the school calendar. No matter what went right or wrong during the semester, it was followed by Christmas and summer vacations to break it up. After that, everything seemed to start over again, fresh, like short-order reinvention.

"What will you have?" "A burger, fries and a summer vacation please, because my roommate is a slob, my relationship is not going well, and my earliest class starts at 9:30." (After a moment, delivering the food) "Here's your burger.....fries.....and your ticket home. We'll see you in September." (Taking the food and the ticket.) "I cannot begin to thank you." So the bad news: You're now conceivably in a world that will run straight through, one long life semester until you are wearing diapers and your grandchildren are embarrassed by the way you inadvertently dribble your food down your chin. The good news: You may be entering the best part of your life. Whatever good you develop for yourself can remain in your life until you change it. Everything is possible. *** Why I Wrote This Book

I am forty-two. I first graduated twenty years ago. A few days after commencement, I walked into my college bookstore and said, "Could you please give me THE BOOK?" "What book?" they asked. "You know. THE BOOK," I said. "What do you mean?" "You know. The one that will give me a clue about the rest of my life, work, relationships, family, the whole thing." "We've never heard of such a book." "Well, what am I supposed to do, then?" "We have no idea." I left the bookstore. My life was beginning and I didn't have a clue what to do with it. So I decided I'd develop my own little strategy. After all, you had to have a plan. MY PLAN -I'd worry as much as possible about my career and whatever else came to mind. -I'd argue with my family. -I'd get into short relationships that had no chance of working out. Hmmm. Well, at least I had a plan... *** Other cultures handle things differently. Most tribal cultures have initiation rituals. They care about how their young come to take their rightful place in society. OK, but initiation rituals in those societies usually include such things as spending a month out in the rain forest. Or in isolation huts. Or getting beaten...or gored by wild animals. That's the initiation fast track. But let's face it, aside from the Pacific Northwest, we don't have too many rain forests in this country, and even if we did, who is going to toss you out into one? *** Instead, here in America, the land of opportunity, your first opportunity after school is to get it right based on practically no information. Our system was modeled on the idea of "Laissez-faire Capitalism." Laissez-faire means, in French, "to leave to do." It means leave it alone. So the plan is to leave the economic system alone, and to leave you alone to figure it out on your own. Fine. I figured it out the way most people do. Here is an excerpt from the soundtrack of that experience. AAW! OOOOHH!! Watch out!!!! Ouch!!!! Oh My God!!!! Now What?? Stitches. This again???? I've had it! Duck!!! *** Time passed. Many of the questions I had were answered. Then one day I found myself in a mentoring program, trying to give something back. And talking to a guy named Jack, I realized I still had questions, but they'd changed over the years. New issues had taken the place of the ones I'd had to deal with after graduating from school. Yet, he was interested in those questions that I now took for granted. And it suddenly occurred to me to write it all down. This book was inspired by that mentoring experience, in the belief that certain things need to be said. Some of what's in this book will be useful for you. Some of it may sound like common sense, but it may not be that common. For example, common wisdom says that it's best to pursue the career you like, nothing new there, but why then don't most people do it? This book presents some of those familiar ideas in a new light. And finally, some of it may not apply to you at all. Here's the thing: This book is full of ideas and strategies. Any one of them can save you months or years. Just as if you're on a boat and you shift just one degree in a better direction, two hours later you'll be not merely a foot but miles closer to where you're going.

Edition details

• Publisher: Double Rose Books
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0967854555
• ISBN 13: 9780967854557
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 190