Tom Holowka . com » General

The World Changes Fast

Tom Holowka — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:48:12 +0000

Yesterday I was thinking about when I first started college. I graduated high school in 2004 and went to Seton Hall university. I hadn’t chose a major but I lived in a dormitory on a floor with all the communications majors. I can specifically remember a conversation with my friends and floormates about how they were worried about finding jobs after they graduated. I agreed with them that things didn’t look promising.

Looking at it now that conversation seems unbelievably stupid. There’s more media outlets now than there’s ever been. You can build your own media outlet from scratch on Wordpress or Youtube. Plenty of people have and plenty more will.

But remember this was 2004 when we had this conversation. When I was thinking about this I asked myself was I really that stupid? How could none of us have seen this?

Back In 2004

Fast Forward back to 2004 for a minute and think about it with me because chances are you don’t realize how much the world has changed since then.

Back in September 2004, when I started college, Myspace was the social network of choice, before the phrase “social network” was even on the radar.

Blogs had been around for awhile but were nowhere near as popular as they are now.

Facebook was .edu for college students only and hadn’t even reached Seton Hall University yet.

What about Youtube? Non-existent. The first youtube video wasn’t uploaded until April 2005. That’s close to two full school years after we had that conversation.

Twitter? Nope. Not until 2006.

So looking back on it maybe we weren’t that stupid. Maybe we just didn’t realize the how quick the world was changing.

What to Do if You Don’t Care About Your Life

Tom Holowka — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 04:09:47 +0000

You’re Screwed.
I can’t help you. Nobody can.

What I Can Do

I can give you reasons why you should care.

I can tell you life is beautiful. I can preach to you about how people have persevered through circumstances much worse than yours. I can read you inspiring quotes or show you inspiring movies.

I can speculate why you don’t care; You might feel powerless, like you have no control like nothing you do matters or like no one cares about you.

I can even understand why you don’t care. You’ve been conditioned by your TV, your parents, your classmates, your boss, your family, your coworkers, and finally yourself. Your whole world taught you not to care, then you taught yourself.

But none of the things I can do will make any difference.

You’ve Gotta Help Yourself

Ultimately the choice is yours.

That Choice is your most powerful ally, your only true possession.

If you have nothing else you’ll always have that choice. You can ignore it, pretending like it’s not there but it is. You can run away from it, but you won’t get very far. You can delay it, but it’ll be back. You can hide from it, but it’ll find you. That choice will always be there even if you’ve already made it. Even if you’ve already chosen thousands of times before. The choice is still yours to make again. It’s always there for you to make.

All you have to do is start caring.

Besides, do you really expect me to believe you don’t care if you’re asking?

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The First Post (again)

Tom Holowka — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:39:20 +0000

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