You Are Apart of Something Bigger Than Yourself

Day 2 at NGLA was amazing! There was so much information that I attained throughout the course of the day. Throughout the day, I attended a presentation by the keynote speaker, Joshua Fredenburg along with four additional sessions. All the information was impactful and relatable not only to Greek life, but with our professional and personal lives. Although all the sessions were informational, the most powerful presentation I attended today was, All In...Motivating & Leading Your Chapter in the Face of Great Pressure. 
Ciocchetti is a Professor of Buisness Ethics and Legal Studies at the University of Denver. Corey Ciochetti started off the presentation by exclaiming that our generation has been labelled, "The Lost Generation." You, your friends, your peers, your sorority sisters and fraternity brothers and I are known as the lazy, the apathetic, the short cut seekers. We are the generation that people believe we will live with our parents until we're 28. This is what we are known for. The Greek community always talks about beating the stigma. In this case, the stigma is ourselves. This is our chance, this is our time to show that we are here for the greater good.  You are apart of something bigger than yourself.
Ciocchetti is constantly in contact with students, observing their actions and taking note in what he sees. He notices that although college student's brains, scores and resumes increase, the effort we put into them go down. Our generation looks for shortcuts. We have restructured classes, maintain fake relationships, and base our lives on social media. But yet we all crave authenticity. We are all so quickly to judge someone else. So how do we fix this?
The majority of the presentation was based around Al Pachino's "Inches" speech in the 1999 film, Any Given Sunday. These are two quotes I picked up from the clip:

"Life is about inches, not touchdowns"

"we live the 6 inches in front of your face"

What do these quotes mean? "Life is about inches, not touchdowns." If you are struggling with something you have two choices. You can either fight your way out inch by inch or you can let knock you down. Ciocchetti asked us to take a moment and think back to when we were 12. He asked us to think about our moral values, and what we were looking for in friends or future partners and what we thought about our family. This really resonated with me.
Lately, the past few months, I've been struggling with  who I am and who I want in my life. I've questioned if the people in my life push me to be better or knock me down. Don't settle. Our moral compass over the course of the last decade has geared off track. Our lives have been revolved around building our resumes, petty drama and lack of genuine, authentic conversations. Our values should never be compromised for anyone. Anyone. No on will ever respect you if you compromise your values. Rather than letting everything that comes our way knock us down, we need to fight inch by inch in order to not just be successful, but happy. Rather than  blaming others, hold people accountable with love and compassion. Work with them and figure out together to fix what needs to be done in order to be better.
"We live the 6 inches in front of your face." Live in the present. Let go of the past. Apologize now rather than waiting months later. Take in all the things you learn in class, the books you read, the conversations you have with people. Take it all in and activity wonder, think and ponder about them.
The credentials on the wall do not make you a decent human being. We have been told since day one to accumulate everything towards your resume. But what about the stuff you can't put on? The lives you changed? The authentic relationships you've made? The inches you gained? Our energy is being wasted on small trivial things rather than the important stuff. In order to live a more authentic life, we need to think outside of ourselves.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b7bgtu2O4E