No direction in life

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Happy Thursday everyone!  One more day until the weekend begins!  This week has been a lot to chew on.  It is absolutely astounding to believe I have only 15 more days here in Washington D.C. I cannot believe how fast it has gone either!  I give my briefing remarks in five days.  The quote above is a sentence in my briefing remarks for next week.  If you are unable to attend, fear not—it will be posted on CCAI’s YouTube channel for the world to see!

Let’s get to the bigger picture and reason why I decided to post an “out-of-turn” blog post.  This post is primarily so I can reflect upon the week that is almost dead and gone.  Here on Capitol Hill, us interns are fortunate to have an intern lecture series.  This is essentially a time where esteemed individuals (politically affiliated or not) kind of tell their stories.  They also offer advice and words of wisdom to us “Youngins.”  To be honest, the majority of presenters are individuals I know little or nothing about.  You should know by now, I came into this internship with absolutely ZERO understanding of politics.  I’ve grown leaps and bounds since then, but still have such a long ways to go.  Just this morning I was educated by a fellow intern on how the Electoral College is setup!  If you refer to a previous post of mine, you will see senator Bennet (CO-D), as well as the current Secretary of the Navy who were also guests for the Intern Lecture Series (ILS).  I just happened to be lucky enough to get a picture with them.   Anyways, I digress…

This week the Honorable Kevin McCarthy (House Majority Leader) and Dr. Arthur C. Brooks (President of the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute) were my selections for the ILS this week.  Here were my main takeaways from these lectures, as I found these tidbits to be EXTREMELY motivational and some of these things I already felt or followed.  I just hadn’t verbalized or acknowledged them yet:

• You can never have too many friends
• One should never stop learning
• The Senate is like a country club, while the House of Representatives is like having lunch at a truck stop
• Believe in the exceptionalism of our country
• Don’t blame others for our own challenges
• Don’t put off touch decisions just because you think it’s difficult
• Be happy; happiness will make people want to know more about you!
• Peace without freedom is meaningless
• Don’t silo yourself based on your philosophies
• Ask better questions to be more successful
• Saying yes and taking more risks with your heart will often yield more successes than downfalls
• Don’t focus and obsess on the “what you do,” but rather focus on “why you do what you do”

I won’t reflect on those points made because I want you to search within yourself as I did and take what you believe to be useful with you.

Lastly, I took a quiz!  Click here to take it.  It helped me determine how I view life in a political sense.  Below you’ll see my current results.  They can change over time, so don’t read too far into it, but coming from such a unique family background, I never really knew my political stance based on morals, beliefs and values.  I strongly encourage everyone to take this 20 minute quiz.  It was super interesting!

Until next time y’all… My next post will probably be the day or day after the briefing next week.  Wish me luck!!!  The next post will also encompass my meeting Senator Wyden (The Boss), as well as Jeff Ruby, whom with I'm meeting this afternoon!