Ever since I left previous job at Lockheed Martin, I never really get into work before 8am anymore. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever come into the Booz office before 8am. But today was different. So every Friday, our office orders Noah’s Bagels in the mornings and they get delivered around 7:30 am. I usually roll in around 7:55 to 8:00 am since I always have a telecon Friday mornings, but I decided to show up at 7 today… that means I had the first shot at selecting bagels this morning. And dude, I was like a kid in a candy shop.
My choices for bagels on Friday mornings at 8am usually consist of: some crappy blueberry bagel, some crappy bagel loaded up with a ton of salt, and some other crappy bagels not even worth mentioning. But because I came in at 7am today, I found out that there was more to the box of bagels than just crappy bagels. I found out that there were, in fact, types of bagels that I didn’t even know existed! For example, I found out that there are chocolate chip bagels, cinnamon sprinkled bagels, and even plain bagels! And the spreads… lets not even get started about the different types of spreads (honey walnut, jalepeno, veggie, etc). Usually, the empty lids of the different spreads just stare back at me, mocking my hunger for delicious foods. But not today! Needless to say, I’m pretty sure I’ll be clocking into the office on Fridays a bit earlier from now on.
As I’m writing this, I can’t help but to be reminded of Stanley Hudson from The Office on pretzel day, and how he basically mows down everyone in order to get his once an year free pretzel. Corporate life can be such a downer…
I’ve been reading a lot of different blogs out there from authors of about the same age group as myself over the last couple of weeks, and there seems to be one common theme between all of the collection of blogs that I scour. I’ve noticed that most of the blogs of persons turning a quarter of a century typically share a generally optimistic view of the future of their hopefully prosperous and exciting lives, however the theme quickly changes in the just a few subsequent years after 25. The general optimism shared during one’s turning of 25 seem to range from being enthusiastic of their new-found drinking prowess to added determination in the workplace to ensuring success in their careers. But after only one or two years later, I read either much more introspective thoughts and discussions to one’s personalities and desires, or the fact that we are not the young bucks as we once thought we were through the joyous discovery of hangovers. All of which begs to ask the question: are we really growing up that fast?
And being that I am 26 now, it’s natural that I also follow this trend and have a few self reflecting thoughts of my own. This random thought session could be spurred from a variety of things, but it is most possibly from the conversations that I have had recently during the Thanksgiving holidays. In any case, it seems that a variety of things have changed from the previous year to the current year; changes that occurred between 25 and 26 years of age.
Simple changes that I have noticed the past days included my preference of purveyed Black Friday ads. Instead of Best Buy, Fry’s, or Circuit City, I have been much more interested in finding the latest deals from Home Depot, Sears, and Scandinavian Designs. It could be the fact that I have already overloaded myself in the vast world of gadgetry in the recent years that now I’m coming to the brutal realization that I have nothing of real use in my apartment eg. tools, cookware, furniture, etc. Other changes include a change in discussions of party planning for the Thanksgiving weekend, to researching the subtle differences between baking soda and baking powder. Hope your banana bread turns out okay Margaret, I take no responsibility for the substitution between the two.
On the subject of hangovers, I recently read a post stating that it was a sign of age that hangovers now officially affect, if not flat-out determine, the post-25 year olds’ ability to commit to schedules. For example, I would not dare to schedule a dentist’s appointment the day after a friend’s birthday party, and neither would I ever commit to coming into work the Monday after a wedding party on Sunday night. Of course many people see this as a sign of aging, however I’d rather call it a step in my slow process of slightly wiser by the passing years.
But are we really growing up that fast? Does the fact that I care about buying living essentials and worry about the repercussions of drinking mean that I am diving head first into the world of late 20’s? Is it actually a bad thing to be growing up at all? From reading the posts of other’s, it would seem that some people see these signs in a negative light, as if all the ‘fun’ stops here. I, for one, am optimistic about the turn of events. It’s my own mind becoming more prepared for the options that I am faced with day to day, and making the decisions that I want to make. Whether or not the decisions I make are ultimately correct or incorrect, I cannot say. However I can at say that the decisions that I did make were in confidence based off of my limited, yet still growing, experiences in life.
And if all else fails, I always just remember to have a bit of patience, remember to have fun and remember to look for the good in the bad. A little bit of humor always helps as well:
I love it how the scared patient runs out with the mouth spreaders. She looks like a Wallace and Grommet character.
