I wanna hold up a big mirror up to the world and then win the award for world's biggest mirror.

This is my 200th post.

I promised ya'll fire.

So I'm gonna give you a fiery rage. This is my one-man assault on popular culture.

Some of my arguments might sound contradictory and I'm going to ramble from time to time but try to get the overall message and frustration.

I want to talk about a topic that's very dear to my heart right now. I want to talk about work. Work? Yes, work. Work. The hustle. The grind. I'm commenting on my generation's work ethic. I know what you're thinking, "How the hell is Cas going to talk about work? Wasn't he the dude that was claiming 'C's get degrees'?" This is true. And I still claim C's get degrees. But I also think that makes me the best candidate to explain this topic to you. Let me elaborate on my credentials. Before Cal, I was schoolin' at a Catholic high school. I wasn't the hardest working guy in the class. I decided long ago that I wasn't going to measure my worth through my grades. Like all private school institutions, this Catholic school wasn't really subject to the California state requirements like most public schools. That means the classes were easier, smaller, and the environment was a lot less competitive than a public school, but we get the prestige of a private school (which means the admissions think we're smarter and our A's count for a lot more.) With that being said, I'm going to claim that everyone had an open shot at going to Berkeley. ANYONE. Getting an A in a class usually meant just turning in assignments on time, which people usually completed the morning the assignment was due or the lunch period before class. I hardly took my studies seriously (nothing's changed) but I got my shit together. I got into Berkeley by performing the bare minimum, and I'm from the Valley. Therefore, I get to talk about this topic because I know what the minimum is to get to somewhere from anywhere. Most people underestimate the minimum while others overestimate it.

Here we go.

There is the concept in my generation of "making it." "Making it" is not the same as success. Success is a self-defined feeling of accomplishment. "Making it" is more like being financially independent. But I wouldn't call it financial independence. "Making it" is achieving that level of financial comfort. It is the point that my generation seems to be working towards. It's the point where you could comfortably spend your own money and not worry or wonder where it's coming from. I'm not going to call it being rich either because it's definitely not that. And I'll talk more about that later. So all our lives, our parents send us to school, cross their fingers, and hope that we become successful, but more importantly, they hope that we "make it." THIS IS WHY WE WERE SENT TO SCHOOL. We go to school to learn but there's no point if we can't learn to feed ourselves.

So I said there's people who underestimate and there's people who overestimate what it takes to "make it." First, I'm going to talk about the people who underestimate the line. I'm starting with ya'll because you guys need it more. This is a strange time we're living in, ladies and gentlemen. We're the multi-tasking generation. We know how to do more, but we know a lot less than those who've come before us. We grew up on television AND the internet. And as we watch the news, it looks like the successful get younger and younger. Kids become instant celebrities and get Benzes before they know how to drive. The point is television has made it look too easy to become successful. Kids (Ages 1-20) think that if other kids can become successful so easily, then they shouldn't have any problems "making it." So the underestimaters do all the things they see successful people doing on TV and they think that it brings them closer to achieving that success. You guys think that buying a ridiculous sweatshirt and chirping on a Nextel (and when that gets old, you start messing with a Sidekick) means that you've made it. I saw this girl at the outlet store who had this sweatshirt on.

And the worst part about it is that she probably thought she was cool for wearing it and thought that all her little friends would let her in their circle solely on the efforts of that sweatshirt. Now I understand that kids will be kids and they'll wear anything if it looks like candy. But all you fakers that are my age, I know you drop more than 2 bills on equally ugly sweatshirts. WEARING BAPE DOES NOT MAKE YOU PHARRELL, PERIOD! (I understand the appeal of the sweatshirts, but you have to admit that the fashion is so blatantly untimeless and unexcusably pricey that you'll be saying, "What was I thinking?" in the same way 80s fashion went out of style.) So who am I to tell you what to do with your money? The problem with the underestimaters is that you think you've already made it. You spend your parents' money on a 200 dollar sweatshirt and think nothing about their struggle. Even if it was your own money that you were spending, your parents are still struggling when you buy that sweatshirt. This obviously does not refer to rich people. But we live in a time, or maybe we've always lived in a time, where people think that looking successful is actual success. Successful people tell you guys to look the part, but I guess they forget to tell you that there's actual WORK involved, or maybe ya'll weren't listening. They have us confused, people. We're living in a time where Tila Tequila gets mentioned as one of Time's People of the Year.

This was the only respectable photo I could find of her. And I'm not even sure if she's fully clothed.

Even before this mention, little girls thought being Tila was as easy as looking good, being slutty, and running on MySpace. But you little girls forgot that Tila is exceptionally good-looking, exceptionally slutty, and when she ran MySpace, she ran hard. She mass-emailed 30,000-50,000 people to get them on MySpace. That's work and that's why she's made it, but you girls are posted up at a digital red light district hoping for some change. It took Thomas Edison more than 1000 attempts to come up with the lightbulb. If you've ever done anything more than 1000 times (and I'm not talking about pressing that friend request button) and still haven't got it right, then you still haven't made it. YOU GUYS HAVE NOT MADE IT YET.

Which brings me to the next group of people, the overestimaters. Ok I lied, these people don't really overestimate the minimum at all. Their priorities are just not straight. They're confused. My professor once told the class "We have to stop looking at the university as an employment agency." And I think she's right. But it's understandable. For Filipinos and most minorities, we come to this country against all odds. Our parents send us to school and some of us get sent to private school hoping to increase our chances of getting into a good college and then increasing our chances of getting a good job so we can take care of our families. We've been taught to think that way. But I predict that we're moving in the right direction for all the wrong reasons. What's the point in doing something if we don't know why we're doing it? Let me give an example. In the Valley, the underestimaters eventually realize, "Oh sh*t! I have to start making my own money, so I can buy another sweatshirt and fix up my car." That's when they take a tip from their parents and get into nursing. They think it's an easy way to make money. You see, I have a problem with that. When I'm all old and wrinkly, and I'm too old to get off my bed, I'm gonna need a nurse to wash me, specifically the area beneath my balls. Do you see it yet? There's a conflict of interest here. If you're the nurse, I don't want you to frown and think that cleaning my balls is just another way to get that new front lip or spoiler. HELL NAW. The privelege of cleaning my balls is hard work, and I expect the nurse performing the job to enjoy it not because you're getting paid $26 per hour for it but because it's your job and you like what you do. My balls have a "FRAGILE" sign on them and you, the bitter nurse, are going to scrub them like it's your new paint job, but it's not.

The school system's been teaching us very different things nowadays. They try to teach us the value of knowledge but they also tell us that you need people skills, networking, and a polished resume to get a good job. Why would anyone try to learn anything at college if it won't help you get a job? They're definitely confusing us. I'm going to use Berkeley's HAAS School of Business as an example. You see business majors and they wear suits. But they're really unconvincing. They look nervous and most of all, they look like they don't know what they're doing. I know most of you business majors don't know what you're doing. You're driven by the fear of being poor, not the prospect of becoming rich. Most of all, you're afraid that you might have to work hard not to be poor. Think about it. You wear the suit and polish all the job-getting skills you need. And you take business classes on the side, but probably don't learn anything. When you graduate, you go straight to the company that recruited you, using said skills. You don't start your own business. You don't make your own money. You make money for someone who is a lot richer than you and you get satisfied with the bones they throw you. You're making someone else richer. The rich, at any given point in time, can just do nothing, and still make money. If you ever said "I want to be rich" and then do nothing, you don't deserve to be rich. During the whole fiasco, you haven't learned anything, you still don't want to work hard, and you probably hate the job you end up in. But if you do end up liking it and you do work hard, more power to you. But for the rest of you, it takes work. And not aimless work, you have to know exactly what you do, why you do it, and enjoy it.

Ok so here's everything I taught you in easy bullet-form

• It takes some WORK to get anywhere in life.
• You have to WORK HARD if you want to reach the place you want to be.
• You have to know exactly what you do, why you do it, and enjoy it.

There's usually a negative connotation with the word "work." The reason why we are the way we are is because the media tells us to pursue fun and that all work is bad. But there comes a point where you can't chase fun anymore when you have nothing. You can't even claim the hard work you've accomplished because you haven't accomplished it. Hard work can never be taken away from you.

Where does that leave me? I still say C's get degrees. But I know where I'm going and I know how to get there. (If you don't know, striving to know is enough.)

For all you students, take this one advice with you: "It's not about the grade. It's about the grind." Remember that.

This is why I'm hot,

Cas

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