I find myself all the time walking from my car at 7:50 in the morning from the parking lot in front of Spellmann Center all the way to Young Hall on the almost other side of old campus. While I'm taking this walk one day I decided that when you're a writer a lot of people don't really get to know the real you. I have a lot of thoughts every day on this walk and I think that it would be good to get them out of my head onto paper and now into this article. You get to see a little piece of me and my thoughts.

When I went to school in Upstate New York for the first two years of my college career, I really learned a lot about how to carry yourself. When you hang around people that actually love and care for you, I feel that you find yourself way more outgoing and able to push the boundaries of your creativity in ways never even imagined.

You already know that your "friends" got your back and if you throw out a plan, or an idea, those people will tell you how they really feel.

This is what I have a problem with though, why do those people need to hear your ideas in the first place? Yeah, they're your friends but what are they really going to do to help you? Yeah, "friends" get along with you and everything but sooner or later when the ship is sinking and there is one spot on the boat who are you saving, yourself or that person you met your freshman year of college? Since you probably answered yourself just like that other person answered themselves when push comes to shove why would someone who wouldn't help you get to have an opinion about something of yours?

I see a lot of famous people in interviews talk about how they met certain people to further their careers, but most of the time they don't talk about the individual effort it takes. All the time they spent alone perfecting their craft. Or even the people they had to step on or drop to get where they are now or the hardships or personal battle they faced. Or if they do talk about it man it's like a fire got lit under their ass and they go on and on. Why is that? I think it because people don't like showing that true side to a lot of people which always perplexed me because I think being real is a great quality.

As my Buying and Selling, Media professor once said: " It's a fucking dog eat dog world full of ruthless people". He's talked about how being the head of the company, how many times he's had to go around the rules to receive results and how "cheating" or bending the rules and finding loopholes is the best way to make millions. I mean he's very successful and it makes me think is that what I need to do to be successful in my field? Do I have to step on people to get what I want or ahead in life? these are always questions I ask myself all the time because my parents have always taught me to be an upstanding gentleman, do the right thing, stand up for the little guy, stuff like that. I used to believe in all of that and don't get me wrong I have great morals but once I got to college all of that changed.

I am not the same person I was when I started school. I'm way more cynical, my heart has been broken a couple times, the number of people I trust besides my family has been slowly dwindling. I think its really all apart of the growing up process. When I was a sophomore, I always used to wonder when that switch in my head was going to turn and I was going to learn to grow up and stop being immature. I first noticed this in my brother when he graduated from college. I started to notice that he was way more mature than he was a year ago. He had two college degrees, a steady girlfriend that he had just proposed too, and moved into his own 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, house with a stable job. He's only 25 and I'm 23 and I cant even keep trash from accumulating in my apt. He truly is one of my role models and he makes me work harder because I see how stable he is. If someone that wrecked our moms 2011 Mercedes Benz when he was 15 can go on and have a stable life so can I. At the same time, I always wonder when I'm going to find the right person to fall in love with. I've probably only had 2 really decent relationships and they both ended not so well. One just ended and the other one I got cheated on so I really shut myself off and every time I try to open myself up again it doesn't work out.

This part is for the girls that broke my heart. I fucking hate you. I hate all the things I like about you. How easy it was to have conversations with you, I hate that we had the same friends. I have how you make me feel, I hate how different and special I thought you were from all the other girls. I hate how we used to party together, I hate the moment we shared, the plans we used to make. I really hate how nervous I was to even muster up a single ounce of courage to ask you to just hang out. I hate the laughs we shared, all the secrets I've only told you and no one else. I especially hate how empty inside you make me feel, how much of nothingness and hatred inside that fill me up every time someone mentions your name. The worst being when I'm by myself with nothing on my mind , you pop up and I say awake at night pissed off at the world not being able to go to sleep. Even though I'll never like anyone the same as you I do thank you. I thank you for giving me joy when I felt like shit, helping me, pushing me when I felt like there was nothing left to give, listening to my advice making me seem like I'm the brightest guy in the room. Thank you for showing me that there is always someone out there for you. Last, thank you for showing your true colors.

I've got a lot of pent up anger but I feel like that's what happens when you grow up. The switch I talked about earlier finally flipped for me when I went home for winter break last year. 2017 was by far the worst year of my life while subsequently not being the worst. Worst in the fact that I Lost one of my best friends/ teammates to suicide literally right across the dorm hallway where I used to live. I know it sounds cliché but he was seriously always smiling, hardest worker, and so fucking selfless. It's still crazy to think that he's not here with me right now. I lost another friend from my Herkimer College days as well to cancer literally two weeks after I lost my first friend and I still feel like I didn't properly grieve. I even just lost friends that I'd been really close with for like two years or so. The worst part is that we had the same friend group and that's when people started to show their true colors. Something when it first started happening I wasn't really ready for but now after all the fallout and some wise words from my professor. " It's a dog eat dog world " and if your friends are still having fun with that other person, why the fuck do you matter at that point? You don't but at the same time you just have to learn to get over it and lets be honest Karma is very real and what I've noticed is that shit works in mysterious ways all the time. I don't need someone else to be happy for me to be happy and that's when I found my silver lining. I realized that I have the connections, drive, and charisma to go anywhere in life. I don't need a lot of people to happy for me to be happy. As I wrap up part 1 of this four part series, I hope with a lot of confidence and self worth life will be a piece of cake.