Influence in your 20's
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- loool
I am doing a bit of a research for my Master's thesis:
What were the things that influenced you the most in your 20's? Name some major/minor things in that period that made you a man that you are today?
if you can help and write couple of things I would appreciate a lot...
- dobre0
having to choose to continue my study or get a job. no job no money to live let alone to study but no study no future job? turned out im ok :).
- duckseason0
This happened when I was 19 (close enough) but is probably the one single biggest influence. Packing up and leaving my redneck town in CA and moving to NYC, even though I'd never been here before, didn't know anyone, and had no real reason to come. Wouldn't trade it for anything.
- johnny_wobble0
having a kid at 21 and having to grow up fast, get responsible and stop eating acid.
- set0
Eating acid.
- vaxorcist0
eating something called a "veggie love burger" at a grateful dead concert.... I should have known....
- DRIFTMONKEY0
Fugazi, The Jesus Lizard, Henry Rollins - Live
Mushrooms, LSD, Hash
Being in a shitty band
Living on Pitt campus with roommates
Ralph Steadman & Hunter S. Thompson
Keeping a sketchbook
Sandman
Tits!
- vaxorcist0
opening my world by taking a bunch of different jobs, not just "career diving board gigs" like my friends with high-stress parents had.... I drove a cab, I delivered Pizza, I worked in photo labs, etc.... met so many more interesting people that way, learned my way of thinking was not the only way, became less teenage-snotty....
that, and becoming a windsurfing addict, ..... wow... the high you get when the wind is screaming along and you're planing towards windsurfer heaven
- popfodders0
What do you mean 20's. Most of the Qbeaners are still in their 20's. LOL
- kingkong0
The dotcom boom. I entered the workforce in 99, and started working straight away in a shit hot digital agency.
So looking back from 20 to 26; work totally defined my life. I was so driven then. I bought my first place at 22 and worked hard to pay for it.
I basically spent my whole time at the office designing websites, Interactive TV... things. I just found the whole world of digital advertising so bloody exciting. Still do.
I was burnt out by 26. Totally. So me and my girlfriend, now wife, got up one morning and bought a ticket to south america, rented out our flat and travelled for 2 years around the the world.
So work and travel I guess.
I hope there are industries for 20 years olds to work in that are as exciting as we had 15 years ago. Your 20's should be defined by defining yourself and work is such a fundamental part of that.
good times :)
- doesnotexist0
dropping out of school and moving to new haven then nyc. being homeless & sleeping in my car for 2 weeks in the process.
- caput580
refusing to go to war
getting off drugs (heroin) and alcohol
moving to a new country (twice)
getting married (1st time)
my daughter's birth
starting my own business and failing- i feel i got to be a bit too personal, but in the name of research...caput58
- +1capn_ron
- hey.. honesty is good.... and respectedvaxorcist
- i know, thanks. it's qbn you know :)caput58
- honesty is appreciated very much!!! hvala!!!loool
- nema na cemu!caput58
- nikako da ti kazem da sam vec par puta gledao tvoje radove i da mi se veoooma dopadaju!!!loool
- svaka ti cast!!!loool
- ooo, hvala druze! nisi ni ti od juce bogami :) pratim i ja tebe...caput58
- fala, mada ja sam student ko sto i vidis...od juce sam jos uvek :Dloool
- ajde nemoj da si skroman toliko... radovi su ti super.caput58
- e, neko ce ovo da prevede pa ce da nas optuze za ko zna sta :) ovo ti je qbncaput58
- hehehe moze biti :Dloool
- vaxorcist0
travelling to a war zone working on a documentary crew and finding out that war can actually be boring most of the time and oddly terrifying but not like you expect every so often....
being shelled from a distance at night is very odd, you know you might get hit, but somehow you wake up the next morning and see that only a few places some distance away were hit.... strangely democratic, nobody is safe, not even if you're rich or powerful,etc..
there's no gas or electricity most of the time, and you have to ask favors of everyone to go anywhere, so you spend lots of time waiting and/or cajoling people..... and trying to conserve food, but running out of time and dealing with people who mostly trust you but sometimes think you're a spy
- having 6 year old kids point AK-47's at you can be a clarifying moment too....vaxorcist
- mikotondria30
Leaving college after discovering underground raves and the dance music culture where people you didn't know and weren't ever likely to meet in the 'straight' world would mix and share and the music the music the music, falling into being into the promotion/production crew of the best club for miles, meeting people in the music biz, getting ready to change the world, not cutting my hair, working hard promoting, talking endlessly about music, and the dance scene, meeting very rich people, dangerous gangstery people, all in the same place, promoter politics and bullshit and people going over the edge, fallouts break ups, new friends, new music, new clubs, making music, selling it, having it on Radio 1, being in charts, going to foreign countries and dancing and meeting people and seeing cultures from behind the dj console, trying to make a record label work, discovering web design and flash, working in a merchant bank, slacking off, learning corporate nonsense, making new friends and living the other end of the game, wearing a suit, leaving a bank, learning more design and coding, getting ready to leave and move to the US. That was my 20s.
- formed0
Getting my act together after a lackluster high school performance. Attending RISD's intro to architecture. Going on to get a bachelor's and a master's in architecture from top ranked schools. Learning that through perseverance, passion and patience you can achieve your goals.
Then learning the profession [of architecture] ain't what it seems while in some progressive design/theory driven education, moving onto to start my own business.
Moving from coast to coast, seeing Europe and realizing that everyone is pretty much the same everywhere - we all have similar desires, interests, necessities, likes/dislikes.
That was my 20's.
- meffid0
Heroin. Nuff said.
- fyoucher10
The underground music scene, Brooklyn, Philly, Manhattan, mid 90's. I'd say that's what influenced me creatively. As far as what has made me the man I am today, i'd say seeing folks i went to school with doing nothing with their lives. I just picked shit up one day and decided to make shit happen. I knew my parents couldnt help me pay for school, so i had to do it myself (worked FT, freelanced, and went to school FT at night and whenever I wasn't working). Lost half my body weight in the process. Crazy shit. Taught me to not only work hard but how to really push ahead even through the worst of times.
- mg330
Moving to Chicago in 2001 at 23 after college graduation with no job, a dwindling bank account, and a rebellious spirit to not give up no matter how much my mom worried and constantly told me "give it a year..." and "if you don't have a job in a year you should think about moving home." Honestly, the first year I lived here was the most challenging of my life and the most exciting. It was the one time in my life I was poor, struggling to survive, find a job, resist begging my parents for money, not having that lifeline of my parents close by, and no family for 1,000 miles actually. First time I was really on my own.
That year is something that, as I've been here 10 years now, I look back on and wouldn't change a thing. i sometimes ate on $5 a week early on. Made a little more than minimum wage in retail. Freaked out to get a temp job making maybe $350 a week. Had the first and only one-night stand of my life with a chick who played Monster Magnet at ear splitting volume on her stereo while a monster doberman slept in a cage near the couch we slept on. Slowly had a little money to take out a girl I was dating who spent much more on me than I did on her. BEGGED my roommate for a slice of pizza if he ever ordered any for himself. Fought the urge to get a job waiting tables because I knew if I did it I'd never have the motivation to do something else - I needed to struggle to actually find something worthwhile. Had to pawn my cherished graduation gift of a Sony Mavica digital camera (1.6 mega-pixels, the one that recorded onto small cds) to pay rent. Performed singing and playing guitar for the first time in my life two weeks after we arrived here at a neighborhood bar and did that Monday after Monday that year and a few years after- the hard weeks were gotten through by the sheer joy of looking forward to playing again, and the appreciation people had for my songs after I played them kept me happy. So excited to have had my mom buy me a window unit AC. Moved from temping to being a law firm receptionist - benefits, 401k, stability, $29K salary and you'd think I was making a million I was so excited. Yeah I was a receptionist, but we all have to start somewhere!
The year got better and better, chased a girl I was totally nuts for but it didn't work out. Met my now-fiance/soon to be wife about 1 year, 2 months after I moved here and we've been together nearly 9 years. Lots of other great things happened after that first year but as I'm randomly writing this, I guess I would summarize that year by saying it's really the year I grew up and realized that nothing happens unless you make it happen yourself. The hard parts in life are what make you appreciate the good parts even more.
- Peter0
>nothing happens unless you make it happen yourself
^ speaking of
When I were 20 I went to visit the Tokyo outpost of Razorfish, where I worked at the time.
Design was nuts, and I had to have it. At any cost.
I moved to Japan about a year or so later to start working at an all Japanese ad company.
Partly funded by (design-) research money from the government.
Been here since (somewhere in my 30ies now).