Sounds and Silence of Laughter

We have a roommate who says some of the most random, dumb, yet extremely funny quotes imaginable. This being the case, fits of laughter occur quite frequently if one hangs around our house long enough. There was one quote recently that sent everyone into the kind of laughter where it's so funny that you can't breathe so for moments it's actually quiet because everyone is laughing so hard they can't breathe. That is the best kind of laughter in my opinion. We were all watching the Colorado Boulder college basketball game vs the Oregon Ducks on T.V. On of our roommates is from Colorado, and so he was really into it. The conversation went as follows. Brad-"I told you Colorado at home is unreal" Tyler-"Yeah cause nobody can breathe" Rob-They're probably like "Quick! Everyone hotbox the arena!" After he said this, we all looked at each other for a second and then burst out laughing. Thinking the breathing comment was about Colo...

A recent fit of laughter came from a frisbee game I was playing with a few other friends. There are two people on a team, and they stand by a pole in the ground with a beer bottle on top. The object of the game is to knock the other team's bottle off of the pole. The defending team must catch the Frisbee and if the bottle falls off, can catch the bottle as well to save points. This is more difficult than it seems. One, I am a poor frisbee player and controlling where it goes can be a challenge. Two, you are only playing with one hand as the other holds a delicious cold beverage of your choosing. And finally, we were playing in February when the sun had gone down so the nice day turned chilly real quick. This made catching the frisbee hurt if you didn't have soft hands. Our friend Gino was playing on the other team, and does not have the best hands out of the friend group. I tossed the frisbee over, missing the pole and hitting Gino right in the hands. He dropped it and let ou...

The job/internship search is the number one stressor of college life. Not really the tests/personations for class, those aren't too bad most of the time. The search is a different beast because it vaults you into the unknown. Trying to determine where you will be for the summer and once the great college time comes to an end is a scary thought. It's also frustrating when you see your friends figuring it out and landing jobs before you, and you ask yourself "What am I doing wrong? I've applied to more than 15 jobs this month and haven't heard a thing!" This was my approach for quite a while. Running into dead ends at every turn it seemed like. Everyone always gives the advice to use your connections, but as a young college kid, I didn't think I had many connections. With that closed mindset, I just dropped as many resumes as I could and prayed to get lucky. But junior year I decided to find/make my own connections. I really wanted a finance job from Alcon...

A really powerful lesson I learned was during Wendy Williams Empathy class about a year ago now. We talked in depth about the power of storytelling and how this helped unlock empathy. There is a really great Ted Talk by Brenne Brown that connects with this on vulnerability if you are interested. But to unlock true empathy, I believe vulnerability and storytelling are essential. Real empathy is going down into a dark hole with somebody to check on them, not just shouting from the top if they are ok. If everyone in life could take a few more minutes to focus on empathy during their day, the world would be a better place. And opening up to a little more vulnerability and understanding how to tell a great story is the key to do this. There were several examples of this during the course of the class. We had refugees come into class and tell their story of how they arrived at the United States a few different times. You see in the news just a mass, broad viewpoint on the "refugee crisi...

One learning experience I have been working on for a while is improving my golf game. Golf is one of those sports that looks so easy when watching it, but to truly appreciate the degree of difficulty you have to head to the range and hit a few shots yourself. A degree change in the angle of clubface and swing path is the difference between your ball ending up in the lake or the middle of the fairway. Achieving consistency is the most difficult part of golf, and I'm far from that… but working towards it. Specifically, after watching YouTube videos of the flop shot legend Phil Mickelson, I was determined to at least hit a flop shot consistently. A flop shot is when you open the clubface all the way and make nearly a full swing to get the ball to pop directly up in the air. Even though you take a full swing, your target is likely no more than 20 feet away, so it really plays mind games with your confidence. That part was the most difficult to figure out. Any slight hesitation or d...