Undergraduate Blog / Career Development

Connecting to Home

A month has passed since I’ve started working at my internship, theChicCulture, a lifestyle magazine focused on providing a platform for the highest quality fashion, food and travel experiences for the fairest prices. In layman’s terms, the business I work for helps you live, eat, and wear your best life. What this consists of as for work on my end is a lot of delving into Los Angeles to seek out these ‘best life’ experiences – looking into and interviewing unique fashion brands, eating yummy foods and plugging them, and traveling all over the city to check out cool events that aren’t the usual ‘Friday movie nights’.

Thanks to my bosses, who believe in a stable work life balance, and the nature of my work for the internship, I have connected much more to my home of Southern California and now, more specifically, Los Angeles. A city of millions has transformed into a backyard of sorts, and I cannot wait to venture further into it and learn more, to further connect to my home.

The reason I talk of my city so lovingly is because I have learned to appreciate it, and have recently learned that an appreciation for where we live is imperative, because it can disappear so quickly. A few days ago, as I was driving home from a work day, I witnessed a terrible wildfire a few miles away from the highway I was driving on. This fire, I found out later, had been raging for more than half a day, and burned 3,500 plus acres. This terrible demonstration of nature, aggravated by mankind’s abuse of our environment, showed to me how crucial it is to respect and appreciate nature and my environment.

We can often get so lost in the pursuit of money, fame, accolades, importance, that we forget our time and place in the world. We can forget to congratulate our friends for accomplishments, to wish our parents happy birthday, and to even take a moment for ourselves. This is a call, from me to you, to slow down and appreciate it. Connect to your present. Connect to your home, to family and friends, to your hobbies and joys and health, to yourself. You never know when it’ll all fall away.