frustrated

"There's a fine line between friendship and business - the key is knowing what it is and separating yourself from that line."

 There I was, standing in front of 20 graduate students at Villanova (most of whom were probably 10 years older than me), discussing Nonprofit Leadership.  I wasn't really nervous at all, but as I stood there talking to them, I wondered: 

What does a 26-year-old up and coming business woman have to offer these graduate students and professionals?

Most of them had a decade of professional experience on me.

I don't have a degree in Nonprofit Management.  I don't have a professional background in Marketing, Public Relations or Finance.  And the closest I've come to managing a group of employees is working in the Human Resources Department at an old law firm.  By and large, I scream whore  unqualified.  

Growing up, my parents taught me to suck  work hard.  But they also taught me that it's important to enjoy the work I do.

I had absolutely no intentions of working in the nonprofit field.  I never thought I had the ability to make a difference in this world.  But here I am, 26 years old with a grassroots nonprofit organization that is struggling in every way possible.  It isn't even close to where I wanted it to be when we first started, and it won't be where I wish it would be five years from now.  It sucks and I hate it.  I don't get paid for this.  I put in roughly 60 hours a week working on projects for my nonprofit and at the end of the day, I go to sleep sometimes wishing it would all disappear.  Is that wrong?

One big lesson I learned recently is that you need to bridge a gap between friendship and business.  After losing one of my hardest working volunteers (who is also one of my closest friends), it put a huge dent in our friendship, as well as my work ethic with my nonprofit.  I made the mistake of taking it personally, even though I knew it was all business and had nothing to do with our friendship.  But it's hard (TWSS) when you create a deep personal and business relationship with someone.  You can't help but take it personally; you feel like you've wronged them in some way, otherwise, why else would they leave?

The good thing is, time heals all wounds and I know that my friendship with that person is way more important than my nonprofit and I know that our friendship will fall back into place just as it was before.

This week has been an intense ride (TWSS) and I'm starting to realize that I'm spreading myself too thin on too many projects.  Actually, I knew this before, but I never wanted to actually believe it.  There's a different between knowing and believing.  I'm starting to realize that I'm not cut out for this - managing a nonprofit.  Yes, I have volunteers to help me, but I don't have much experience and I feel like I'm leading them, myself and my organization in the wrong direction.  Why else would we be struggling?  

I wanted to help because my best friend was doing this.  This is her organization; I'm just here for the ride (TWSS?).  But over the last six months, I've been doing all of the grunt work - writing grants, applying for grants, writing proposals.  You know, that fun stuff.  While my best friend, who is supposed to be my partner in all of this, gets all of the glory - networking, planning events, etc.  I don't get it and it's beyond frustrating.  I put in 50 hours of work every week doing EVERYTHING for my nonprofit and I have yet to see a reward.  I don't ask for much praise (mainly because I don't like it), but there's nothing worse than working your ass off to make this nonprofit run efficiently and effectively and know that my best friend doesn't even appreciate any of it.  Yet, she criticizes me the moment I don't give her praise for something she does.  

I'm not cut out for this.  I don't have the degree or the professional experience to be running my own nonprofit organization.  The only thing that keeps me going in all of this is my work ethic and trying to find any little piece of encouragement I can give myself to keep pushing forward.  

My best friend is moving to Florida next month.  She says if she can't find a job by June, then she's moving to Australia with her sister indefinitely.  I didn't ask for this.  I'm busting my ass to file papers with the government and apply for grants so we can continue our efforts, yet she doesn't even think about what happens to this organization after she moves.  I know what would happen if I left the organization - it would go up in flames.  

I rarely ever quit anything I put my heart and soul into, but for the very first time in my life I feel like I want to quit this.  I'm not made out for this.  My best friend is going to move away, detach herself from the organization entirely and not even care about what happens to this, our volunteers or our efforts.

This is her business.  Why am I picking up all of the pieces?

GenY: conquer your fears and defy the odds

 

(via)

Eleanor Roosevelt said it best:

"You must do the things you think you cannot do."

Fear.  

Sometimes it eats you, sometimes you eat it (twss*).

We're all scared of something - moving to a new city, quitting a job, ending a relationship, dying - but the thing is, life is about conquering your fears.  It's about challenging yourself, expanding your limits and defying the odds.  It's about the pursuit of happiness and discovering yourself.  

How many times have you done something you were afraid of and then looked back and said, "I'm so glad I did that."  Suddenly, that fear becomes an accomplishment.  And that accomplishment inspires you to tackle the next big thing that comes your way.  And our biggest accomplishments are often the things we feared most.

Our generation - the GenY - is defying the odds.  We're proving ourselves and everyone around us that we're invincible.  Because you know what?  We are invincible.  Moving across the country?  No problem.  Backpacking through Europe for three months?  Bring it on.  Meeting strangers off the internet and establishing a close friendship?  Been there, done that.  Our parents and grandparents don't understand it, but you know what?  They don't have to.  I'll never understand why my father thought smoking a pipe was cool in his younger days, so I don't expect  our parents to understand twitter** or blogger meet-ups.

We're constantly doing something.  We're learning, we're growing, we're moving.  No distance is too far to travel and no fear is too scary to conquer.  We have given traveling, friendship, and career new meanings.  It's not just traveling to visit family or friends - it's traveling alone and perhaps overseas to enrich your culture and broaden your horizons.  Our closest friends aren't necessarily the ones we grew up with anymore - they're the ones we spent countless hours g-chatting or tweeting with.  A job isn't just a 9-5 desk job anymore - it's a career that involves doing something you're passionate about with an incentive to get paid.

We're conquering this thing called a quarter-life crisis because we know that something lies at the end of that tunnel.  We want to know what it is and we aren't going to settle until we find it.  And those road blocks that stand in our way?  Well it's much more interesting and gratifying to look back and realize that you've conquered your fears.

"We fall down.
We get up. We try to hold our head up when life pulls us apart.
We fight and we bleed but all we ever need is
something to hope for"

* Someone didn't know what T-W-S-S- stood for until recently.  I know, I can't believe it either.

** I'm 26 and I still don't understand twitter, but it's starting to slowly grow on me. (TWSS)

on credit cards, learning lessons, being an adult and taking responsibility for your actions

Confession:  I'm not good with money.

I have two checking accounts, a 401K, a Money Market account, stocks, and mutual funds.  I don't know what I own stock in, nor do I know what my mutual funds are.  I don't own a savings account because five years ago I spent all of my savings during my last two and a half years in college so I could pay rent, eat every day, put clothes on my back and heat in my apartment, and buy my text books and school supplies.  Looking back, I don't regret spending all of my savings in order to survive college because I came out of it without having any loans tied to my name.  I was essentially debt free.

Right after college, I had the opportunity to move to the big city.  Not the big city, but a big city.  I struggled financially during the first few years because I spent way more than I was bringing in. 

Enter credit cards.

My parents never taught me how to budget money and be financially responsible, so I never really learned how evil credit cards were until I accrued a good amount of debt - debt that I'm still trying to pay off. 

One huge goal of mine is to pay off all of my credit card debt and increase my credit score from average to great before I'm 30.  I have about $6,000 in credit card debt.  For the average credit card user, that may not be much to pay off, but for me it is.  I like to know that my money is being spent wisely.  But four years ago I made the mistake of spending it unwisely by going out almost every night, eating out way too much and just buying random crap that I didn't really need.  And I always had that mindset of: "Oh, I'll just pay it all off later." 

It's been about five years now and I'm still waiting for later to happen.

Over the last year or so, I have been working hard on becoming financially smart and financially responsible.  I haven't used any of my four credit cards in about three months and I've been making as many payments each month as I can.  Surprisingly, I'm doing well with this whole budget your money thing.  I haven't been going out as much and I've been cutting back on my random spending.  I have only $300 to pay off on one of my cards, $400 on another, and $800 on another. 

So why did you say you have $6,000 in credit card debt?

Because I have this one credit card that I just never paid.  I know, it's so stupid, but I just kept putting off the payments (and the interest kept accruing) because I had other things I needed to pay for.  Like rent and my car insurance and buying my best friend a Nintendo Wii for Christmas.  (yes, that was probably a poor gift idea, but I did get one for Christmas too)

As the late Gilda Radner would say:
 
"It's always something."

So yesterday I received a phone call from a debt collector.  Typically they ask me where their money is and how soon I can pay them.  But this phone call was different.  And it was probably the slap in the face I needed for me to learn that one should always pay their credit card every month.

In case you were wondering, if you don't pay your credit card company for six months, they file a lawsuit against you.  Trust me, you don't ever want a lawsuit against you. 

Cue panic attack.  

The woman I talked to said that her job was to be a mediator and try to come up with an alternative solution before the credit card company slaps me on the ass with a lawsuit.  The resolution?  To pay my $4,000 credit card debt in full.  Right now.

Cue second panic attack.

I told the woman I don't have $4,000 saved up.  Clearly since I am bad at budgeting my money.  She suggested I get a loan from someone.  I asked her if she would loan me the money.  She said no.  She then suggested I make a small payment now and then find alternative sources to pull my funds from.  Again, I don't have a savings account and I don't know what I own stock or mutual funds in.

I wanted to cry. 

But then I realized, this is what happens when I blatantly ignore making paying off my credit cards. 

Now it was time to take responsibility for my actions.

So I called my Financial Adviser - actually, I sent her an email, trying not to sound like I was freaking out, but kindly asking where I could pull my money from to pay off this annoying debt.  She called me telling me I could liquidate two of my mutual funds just enough to cover the $4,000 debt.  And I would only take about a $600 loss on those accounts.  I don't know what that means, but if it helps me pay my credit card off, I like it.

I called the debt collector back, told her I'd have the money in my account by next week and she said that my account will be put on hold and they won't slap me with the lawsuit.

Thank god.  I'm still stressed about having to use my mutual funds to pay off my credit card debt, but I'm relieved to know that once this is all said and done, I won't be getting a lawsuit and I'll only have about $1,500 in credit card debt to pay off.  My new goal is to pay that off by the end of this year.  My other new goal is to never use a credit card ever again.

Lesson learned - always pay your credit card bill.  On time and in full, if possible. 

Another lesson learned - always take responsibility for your actions.  While it may look like a reward at first, if you're careless and irresponsible, it could come haunt you in the end. 

"When did we become adults?  And how do we make it stop?"

- Grey's Anatomy -

wise words:

this is my confession:

"That's the thing ... there are some things people don't admit because they just don't like the way it sounds."

The first step in any road to recovery is admitting it.

The loneliness set in about three weeks ago.  I have been so busy with getting other things in order that it nearly caught me off guard.  I was sitting at home, watching a movie and I felt this sudden pain in my chest.  Not the I'm having a heart attack pain, but more like a deep weight setting on my chest.

For the last six years, I have battled depression.  I was diagnosed right after my mother passed away, and rather than take anti-depressants (I've witnessed first hand what it can do to a person), I decided I would fight it on my own.  Most times, I win.  But every once in a while, my depression wins.  And those times it does win?  It's beyond painful.  

Lately, I've been fighting a double battle - depression and loneliness.  I've been too scared to admit it to myself but I know fighting it will only do worse damage than working through it.  I'm lonely.  But not the I'm lonely and need a relationship or more friends to cure this way. 

I envy every single person who has the ability to talk to their parents whenever they want.  I lost both of my parents by age 20, and having to grow up without them truly sucks.  I knew it was going to be hard, but I guess I didn't realize it was going to be this hard.  Not a moment goes by when I don't think about them.  Everything I've experienced in the last six years, I've had to experience on my own.  I have no parental support system anymore.  And the love and support I have from my brothers and friends, don't make up for what I've already lost.  You can't replace the love and support of a mother or father. 

I don't regret anything I've done in my life.  Sure, maybe there were things I would have done differently, but I'm sure there are things in your life that YOU would do differently too, right?  Losing both of my parents at such a young age gave me strength.  Right after my mother died, I truly believed that my life was no longer worth living (if that's not a clear sign of depression, then I don't know what is).  And I may have explored certain options (think hard enough and I'm sure you can figure out what those 'options' were), but when it came down to it, I just couldn't do it.  My father actually executed that option when I was 12 years old and no good came out of it.  I didn't want to follow that same path.  I'm so much stronger than that, but it took six long years for me to finally realize it. 

I'm trying to recover from all of this, but I know it's not going to happen over night.  I've thought about therapy, but I tried that years ago and it didn't help at all.  Or maybe I just didn't like my therapist.  But I tend to believe that if I can't solve my own problems, then who can?

And yes, maybe I should feel guilty complaining about what I'm suffering through considering those children in Haiti lost everything, but you know what?  To each his own.  Everyone is suffering from something, and regardless of how big or small it is, it's just as important as what the person next to you is going through.

the past has left its stain

now I feel the shame

I'll seize the day
if you take away
the chains of yesterday

just one of those really awesome good days

Ever have one of those unexpectedly really good days?

Yeah, today was one of them.

It started off like any other day and within minutes things kept pouring in that just made it an incredibly good day.

Today...

I was asked to speak to a class at Villanova University about my nonprofit organization.

I had a phone interview with a nonprofit in Washington, D.C. for an Accounts Manager of Fundraising and Sponsorships position and it surprisingly went really well.

I was assigned a project at work that I actually enjoy doing and that doesn't have to be finished until Monday (yes, that makes me happy, don't judge me!).

Events for my nonprofit are falling into place just as I had hoped they would.

And to finish this awesome day, I'm going home to make dinner and then out for drinks with some fabulous ladies!