Seriously, this guy is in the running for douche of the decade!
The Valedictorian of University of Maryland drops out of school two weeks before graduation
Entrepreneur
Okay, let's start with the fact that this putz identifies himself as "Entrepreneur." Generally, that term refers to someone who has risked his personal fortune to start a business. It is generally not used to refer to self-impressed little schmucks who have yet to accomplish a goddamm thing in their lives.
And this little jackass was two weeks shy of actually accomplishing something -- not anything entrepreneurial, but still -- and he quits? How much money did your parents invest in your college education, and you quit with 2 weeks to go?
Also, he refers to himself in the third person in that stupid headline.
And he writes this smug, self-satisfied open letter to the University of Maryland and his infortunate parents:
Dear University of Maryland,
I was your Valedictorian until about a month ago and almost gave the Main Commencement Speech at graduation, but instead of giving the speech, I decided to follow my dreams, fail all my classes this semester, and drop out of school two weeks before graduation without getting a degree. If you would like to know why your Valedictorian dropped out of school, you're welcome to read my email to my parents below:
Yeah, I'm guessing they don't care to know. They have your parents' money, if you want to leave early, how is that any skin of their nose?
Dear Mom and Dad,
I finally found my destiny this semester in college.
My destiny was to not only disappoint you and waste your money, but to then go on and embarrass you publicly!
I have finally understood how leadership, happiness, and fearlessness actually work.
Leadership is very simple.
All you need to have is a lot of confidence and a lot of empathy both at the same time.
Pictured: Three men known for their empathy.
You know, it's great to have a lot of confidence and empathy, but you know what else helps? Having some fucking clue what you're doing!
You need confidence to know what you want to do and do it.
You need empathy to understand other people’s perspectives, emotions, wants, and desires so you can lead them and help them achieve their goals.
You make yourself happy and you make everybody around you happy.
Hey, you know who usually end up being great leaders? Guys who think "hell, this'll be super-easy!"
I have learned that there are only two real emotions in life: love and anger.
Absolutely. As long as you don't count fear.
Or joy.
Or sadness, disgust, hatred, contentment, envy, want. . . but yeah, really just two.
Life is not as complicated as people make it out to be as long as you’re not lazy.
Life is actually very simple.
We are always mentally at either peace or war.
You show love to your friends in peace and anger to your enemies in war.
That’s it.
Peace or War.
People are also easily divided in two categories: real friends or enemies.
Oh, that attitude will really serve you well in the world of business. Other business-people aren't independent actors with whom you can possibly make deals in mutually beneficial ways. They are either your real friends or your enemies. That's totally not the kind of perspective that lands you in bankruptcy court over and over again.
This is what a real friend is: he supports you in every way possible, makes you feel better no matter what you’re going through, never judges you, never makes fun of you in a bad way, and always has your best interest in mind.
Every “friend” that does not fit this description is a fake friend.
Sounds like a page from every 13-year-old's diary!
You need to get rid of fake friends immediately. They’re only slowing you down.
Either try to convert them to your real friends or just completely ignore them forever.
Get rid of them IMMEDIATELY! Or, you know, try and see if you can cajole them into being your true besties!
I have finally also understood what passion really means.
Every human being on this planet only really has one passion - the passion of life.
If we are mentally at peace, we are passionate about life by doing what we love.
If we are mentally at war, we are passionate about life by fighting for it and protecting it.
Somewhere at the University of Maryland there is an intro to philosophy professor whith his face in his hands groaning "no, that's not what I meant."
Very simple.
You’re always happy, though.
Happiness is a choice.
You’re happy in peace.
You’re happy in war.
You’re always happy.
What? How does that even. . . what kind of a psychopath is happy in a war?
And that is not how emotions work. You can't just say "oh, my girlfriend broke up with me? I choose to be happy! Oh, my mom just died? I choose to be happy! Oh, my son is a nincompoop who's dropping out of college because he thinks that at 21 he's figured out the secret of life? I choose to be happy!"
If you stop being lazy, stop listening to haters, and take control of your mind and all its thoughts and emotions, you can literally choose to be happy all the time.
From right now, till the second you die, you can always be happy if you want to.
Happiness is a choice.
I’m always happy, no matter what happens.
You think you need a reason to be happy?
I’m happy because I’m alive. Period.
There are no other emotions in life other than love and anger.
And happiness. Love, anger and hap - three emotions! There are only three emotions!
Fear?
What is fear?
Fear doesn’t make any sense to me.
Yeah, what doesn't make sense to you would fill a dictionary, but go on.
Fear is not an emotion.
You can’t feel fear.
Really? You can't? I mean, I guess if you're a full-on sociopath, maybe you can't but the rest of us?
Pictured: Wendy acting strangely for some unknown reason.
Fear is generally recognized as one of humankind's most primal emotions. If humans did not feel fear, we'd all have been eaten by sabre-toothed tigers aeons ago. Fear is absolutely necessary for survival. It's why you don't walk up to a bunch of Hell's Angels and tell them that motorcycles are for weiners.
Fear is all in your head.
Yeah, that's where all emotions are.
If it’s in your head that means you can completely block it out.
Maybe, but if you do that it will inevitably lead you to making stupid decisions like trying to climb into the lion enclosure at the zoo to pet the cubs or dropping out of college with two fucking weeks left because you think you're some sort of brilliant genius-guru or something.
This semester I was able to block out every single fear I had in my head about absolutely everything.
I’m literally, by definition, fearless, and you can be too if you want to.
So, if you were confronted by, say, an angry bear, or a gun-toting lunatic or a 20-ft tsunami, you'd just block that fear out of your head? So you'd have no motivation to try and flee the danfer? So you'd be dead? Hell of a plan there, Sparky!
What are you afraid of?
1.
Are you afraid of other human beings?
What?
Why?
What does that even mean?
Why would you fear someone of your own species?
Really? Why? Um, maybe because members of my species commit 100% of the murders, assaults, and batteries that happen ever?
Because some of the more notorious members of my species include Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy and Dick Cheney?
How is this confusing for you?
Why would you fear someone of your own species?
If someone is a threat to your happiness in any way, then they are an enemy.
Aggressively defend yourself from your enemies, but also show mercy.
Just because somebody is your enemy, does not mean you necessarily have to hurt them.
You should do your absolute best to solve all your problems without unnecessarily hurting others.
Other human beings should not be your enemies.
Life is a collaboration, not a competition.
You just said --JUST SAID-- thast anyone who is not your true friend is your enemy. Yous just said that like 5 minutes ago. And now you're going to sit there straight-faced and say "
Other human beings should not be your enemies."
And "life is a collaboration, not a competition."?
These are your real enemies: cancer, hunger, homelessness, all other diseases, the fact that we're running out of resources and haven't colonized other planets yet, the fact that we haven’t discovered life somewhere else in the universe, etc.
How is the fact that we have yet to discover life on other planets my enemy? I'm perfectly fine with that. It would be pretty cool if we did find little green men on Mars, but it doesn't really impact my life that we haven't.
I would say that I have more to fear from the fact that we've never found the Zodiac than the fact that we've never found space aliens.
Okay, I can see that this is going to need to be a two-parter. Maybe three. But this has gone on long enough already. I'll try to pick this up tomorrow.
