1. If you had an opportunity to get a message across to a large group of people, what would it be?
As of right now I would want to get across the message that took my entire 26 years to realize. This may be stunningly obvious to most people, but to the people I went to high school and college with and have been surrounded by for the majority my of life, there was always only one clear- laid out path in life. Like, you never even got a choice or a say about it. Go to college, get a job, put all your effort & time into your career, climb that ladder, get that car, that house,then a bigger house and a better car, amass all you can so your future and your children's future is 100% secure and you can afford anything they ever dreamed of or could ask for, grind until you die & be a slave to money.

While there isn't anything necessarily wrong with this, it isn't the only way to live. It is not your only choice. While i always knew that in a factual sense, I and everybody i grew up with (yes we are all spoiled upper middle class children)saw it as the only acceptable conceivable path. And i guess my message would be that it's not the only path. There are so other many to ways to live. If you want to live that way then do it, but if you don't you don't have to. And the big surprise is, just because you don't choose that path, it doesn't make you a failure. that was the big surprise for me, that i wish i had known about earlier.

So, I guess my point is that you don't have to feel guilty about not wanting that life. that its OKAY to choose something else. and i know for me that was a huge fucking relief, & I would hope it would be for some other people to. But i guess it's kind of a message people need to learn for themselves.

I was going to answer a few more, but they'll have to wait for another day, tired and have work tomorrow. hey everybody has to grind sometimes, even those of us that choose other paths! ;)