Random Thoughts with Will

     As 2019 came to a close, I wrote about how I wanted to finish out the year strong. In past years, I've found that the way I finished out one year helped to shape the year that followed and set the groundwork. For me, that made it all the more imperative to close out 2019 on a good note.      Naturally, just as I was thinking that I was closing out the year the way I wanted to, I found myself staring down past struggles that were resurfacing. Past struggles in the form of inadequacy, rejection, loneliness, and singleness. Following a nice trip home for Christmas to see family, a different struggle emerged: a pesky cold. Ending 2019 and beginning 2020 bedridden with a fever wasn't exactly what I had in mind. Even after the worst of the cold was gone, I still found myself feeling withdrawn, both from having a cold and from those lingering past struggles. Around this time, I also found myself feeling weary, not having the same energy to do the very thi...

     In year's past, I've finished out the year with a blog post detailing life lessons learned over the course of the year. I figured I would do the same for 2019. It's hard to believe it's a new decade, too. A decade that began with me a freshman in high school finished with me coming up on 3 years in Houston. And as I typed that last sentence, it just occurred to me that I might have spent more of the decade in Texas than in Virginia, which completely blows my mind. Nonetheless, here are 2019's Life Lessons: For everything to go right, sometimes everything has to first go wrong: A few days ago, I saw a post on social media for those that had a rough year. It's wish was that the tears of this past year would water the seeds for the upcoming year. Going in to 2019, I was coming off of a tough year and really wanted 2019 to be an improvement. As I've reflected on this year, I'm thankful to say that 2019 really was a good year for me. Over the course ...

     When it comes to board games, Chutes & Ladders may not be quite as iconic as Candy Land or Monopoly or have as funny of a name as Don't Wake Daddy, it is a board game that just about every child has played at one point or another. With Chutes & Ladders, getting to the top to win the game is often filled with the highs of moving on up and the lows of moving on down. Landing on the right square can put one at the top in an instant. Conversely, one can work one's way all the way up to the top and land on the wrong square with a chute that sends one back to the bottom. At the end of the game though, each player is further along than when they started, even if they didn't win.      Over the course of this year, I've found that life and improvement are more like Chutes & Ladders (or most children's board games) than I realized. With life, we can be taking steps in the right direction and feel like we're growing...only for us to hit a "chute...

     When you watch enough Disney movies, you'll notice that most inevitably feature a "villain song". Sometimes this song is more lighthearted, like when Le Fou sings "Gaston" to cheer up his friend. Other songs are about the villain deceiving the protagonist, like Ursula's "Poor, Unfortunate, Souls", Kaa's "Trust in Me", or Mother Gothel's "Mother Knows Best". Come to think of it, there's even the rather dark and disturbing song "Hellfire" sung by Frollo which is...well, different. Then, of course, there's the epitome of Disney villain songs (in my opinion), one that cuts to the chase and explain the villain's plot: "Be Prepared" from The Lion King. In "Be Prepared", Scar outlines his plan to kill Mufasa and Simba to the hyenas and enlists their help. As the song suggests, he's telling them to be prepared for what's to come: a coup that will make him king.      While ...

     In a classic early season episode of Arthur , Arthur and his fellow classmates partake in "TV Free Week," agreeing to go a week without watching television. Over the course of the week, Arthur, his family, and his best friend Buster find it really hard to go the week without watching any television (I suppose if this episode were made today it would be about going a week without using social media or a streaming service, but I digress). As Arthur and Buster are on the final night of TV Free Week, they both happen to find themselves outside a friend's house so that they can watch a TV movie special. Just as Buster approaches the doorsteps and is ready to knock, Arthur realizes how close he and Buster - not to their friend's house, but to going a whole week without watching TV. They resolve to stay true to their pledge and go the park instead.      Arthur and Buster found that it was really hard to go a week without TV, but found it gratifying that the...

      Over the past 2 weeks, I've found myself feeling a sense of nostalgia for the final month and a half of college. It's hard to believe it's been 3 years since I was finishing up my time at Baylor (not to mention all that has changed since then). When I look back on my final semester at Baylor, it was a semester of changes, of reflections, and a race to graduation. The final semester of college for me meant making a few defining changes in my life. Those changes included switching the track/area within my major, changing how I was spending my Saturday mornings, and changing how I was spending my Sunday mornings.      For the majority of my time in college, I was on a sales track within my major (there were also tracks in sponsorship and in CRM/analytics). Following a sales project in college and a summer internship in group sales, it became abundantly clear that sales was not the right role for me. That meant talking to my professors about it at the s...

     On this day 18 years ago, Pixar's  Monsters, Inc. first premiered in theaters. I can fondly remember seeing it in theaters on its opening night at the Regal Cinemas in Short Pump. We even saw it in theaters a second time when they added outtakes to the end of the movie, which included them putting on the musical "Put That Thing Back Where It Came From Or So Help Me. All of that may help explain why I've been experiencing nostalgia for this particular Pixar film, one that's improved with age. Considering that I've had blog posts about fellow Pixar films A Bug's Life  and the entire Toy Story series, it only made sense to reflect on another early Pixar film (at this pace, you're up next, Finding Nemo ). Monsters, Inc. does a great job of delivering laughs (more on that later) and lessons along the way, too.      Before diving into the lessons from Monsters, Inc. , I have to give it a shout-out for its awesome opening sequence with the doors a...