By Patricio Gallardo and Daniel McKenzie

After reading several stories on the Wish Dish, we took a peek under the hood of the WishDish to see what motifs are running through the stories, to help contributors find their tribe.  Our hypothesis was that the WishDish stories would fit into just a few categories such as Sport, Faith or Relationships, and that these categories could be identified by the vocabulary used in the stories. By analysing what makes two stories similar, we would be able to provide better recommendations to readers, based on what they’ve already read. Using a bit of Math, Computer Science and common sense, we obtained some interesting insights into the WishDish community.

First the technical stuff. Once we received the set of all stories from Bryan, we used the Python programming language and the Pandas library of functions to prepare the data for our analysis. Specifically, this meant placing the data into a structure called a data-frame, which is not too dissimilar from a table, or an excel spreadsheet. We’ve included a screenshot of the data-frame below, and you can see that we’ve kept, for each story, the author name, a unique author ID, the date the story was uploaded, and the raw (that is, unprocessed) text of the story. Single story ids index the rows.

In the column ‘CleanStory’ we store a pre-processed version of the story. Specifically, we used the Natural Language ToolKit (NLTK) to change all letters to lowercase, remove punctuation and remove ‘stop words’ (frequently occurring words that are grammatically useful, but do not carry much meaning such as ‘a’ and ‘at’).

With our data clean, we were ready to do some analysis. First, we needed to build a ‘dictionary’ of words to be used to distinguish our stories. Words which occur in most stories are no good, and neither are words which occur only in one or two stories.  Fortunately, the SciKitLearn toolbox has a function, TfidfVectorizer, which automatically builds this dictionary.  If we do not impose any limit on the size of our dictionary, then it will have 173774 words in it!  With a bit of tweaking, we arrived at a set of 500 words and bigrams (common two word phrases like ‘red wine’ or ‘high school’) characteristic to the WishDish that would be most useful in figuring out what a story is really about.  For example, “believe”,”athlete”, “beauty”, “cancer”,”change”,”college”,”my parent”, “love”, “believe”, “depress”, “father”, “my mom”, “future” were all in this set.  We then used the SciKitLearn toolbox to count the number of times each word occurred in each story, and saved the results in a data-frame, visible below.

Using these wordcounts, we can determine how close two stories are to each other. Loosely, if two stories have similar wordcounts, they are deemed close. Below is a data frame containing the distances between all stories. Obviously, the distance from a story to itself is zero!

We were now able to build a Recommendation engine for the WishDish! Essentially, given any story in our database, identified by its StoryID, our engine returns the three closest stories to it.

Moreover, we were able to group the stories based on the nature of their content. Using a simple algorithm called K-means, we sorted the stories into seven groups or ‘clusters.’  The sizes of those groups are 31, 51, 48, 18,73 110 and 166 respectively. The most common words in each cluster (technically, the most common words in the cluster centroid) tell an interesting story. For example, the words associated most strongly with cluster two include: college, family, Georgia, great, high, high school, level, life, people, school, sports,  students, success, team, time, uga, wanted, work, etc. A closer look reveals that the stories contained in this cluster include many of the ones related to sports.  On the other hand, the words most associated with cluster seven include: “cancer, change, college, dad, day, eyes, face, family, feel, finally, heart, help, home, hope, kids, lives, love, mom, parents,  remember, summer, time.  A closer look reveals that this is a collection of stories about dealing with loss and illness in the family.

At this point, we decided to look at the shapes and boundaries of our clusters. What we found surprised us. As it turns out, the groups kind of flow into each other, without any hard borders between them. It isn’t easy to visualize such a large data set; recall that we are talking about hundreds of stories with 500 different keywords! However, the picture below, a projection of the dataset into two dimensions, illustrates this lack of borders quite clearly.

What was going on here? After scratching our heads for a while, the answer became apparent. Stories are rarely about only one thing. A story about a toxic relationship might equally belong to the Relationship cluster or the Health cluster. Likewise, a story about an athlete finding the strength to keep competing could be either Sports or Motivational. This phenomenon leads us to reconsider how we viewed the WishDish stories, and their authors. Instead of separate tribes, WishDish contributors could be better thought of as residing in loosely defined neighborhoods of a large city.  As further evidence of this, it is evident from the histogram below that most stories are more or less the same distance from any other story. So WishDishers, get exploring! Be sure to examine your own ‘neighbourhood’ closely, but don’t be afraid to follow a trail of stories into a new neighborhood; you might find them more relevant than you think.

As the student of a Jesuit institution, the art of discernment is not lost on me. When asked “what does it mean to be you” or “what is your defining quality”, there are many things that come to mind. But after thinking through these other characteristics, there is always one characteristic that is at the center of my other favorite personal qualities: kindness.

I will be the first to admit that earlier on in my life, I wasn’t the kindest person I knew. In middle school, I was a completely different person than I am today. Unrecognizable to those who know me now. Even after all the repressed memories from that time in my life, I still remember the person I was, and I refuse to become even a little like I was back then. I changed for the better after my middle school and high school days. In late middle school and early high school, I fell in with a great group of friends who taught me what real friendship was like.

Unfortunately, after losing one of these friends who was bullied and harassed for so long, most of my other friendships fell apart as well. But one thing that I will never forget from my late friend is her kindness. She is the reason that I fight so hard for things like mental health awareness and anti-bullying efforts. She is the reason why I work to be kind to everyone I meet, whether they deserve it or not. She is why I believe that kindness is my defining quality.

When you look up the definition of kindness, you might find something like “the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate”. But kindness is so much more than something that can be read off a page. Kindness is something that you emulate. Something that you feel in your heart and in your soul. Kindness is often unforgettable. Kindness is a saving grace, and can change someone’s life.

For me, kindness is a way of life, not just a definition or a quality that someone may have. It is a trait that connects me to my friend who died because of all the hate that was sent her way. Kindness is a connecting force: something that makes me feel coupled to another individual. But overall, kindness is a gift that I try to give to every individual that I encounter.

Whether that be going out of my way to help someone out, giving a smile to someone who has temporarily lost theirs, or complimenting strangers who look as if they could use some uplifting words, kindness is a rebellion to the hate and exclusivity that we see too often in our world. Be a rebel. Spread kindness. And always remember, no act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

I have borderline personality disorder. I have severe bouts of anxiety and depression. I can become erratic and manic in the flip of a switch. I am withdrawn from school. I’m broke. I am in debt to many. But I’m happy.

As I’ve become more and more comfortable opening up about my mental illness and the different ways it has affected me, people that I wouldn’t even consider acquaintances have shown their support to me. It’s shocking, amazing, heart-warming, and overwhelming all at once. To know that a stranger took the time to hear your words, felt sympathy, and came to me with kind words and support. One of the recurring phrases that I was told was that people hoped I would find happiness one day. One day.

It makes sense. On paper, I don’t have much that I should be happy about. But how could I not be totally and completely happy despite my mental illness?

I’m tired of people telling me that they’ll hope I find happiness or that good will come one day. Happiness is here. Good is right now. Despite all of my circumstances,  I have so many reasons to be happy. I have too many beautiful people in my life who help me. The saying “it takes a village” is no fucking joke when literally ever person in my life gets get through my day to day. Some days I’m even overwhelmed with how much happiness I feel.

Yes. Some days are sad. Some days are excruciatingly difficult to get through. Some days it, I can’t wait to just crawl back in bed and go to sleep, just to do it all over again the net day.  But there are so many other days that are joyous. And those are the ones worth sticking around for.

The month of December induces several emotions: the relief of finishing yet another semester, the excitement of coming home for the holidays, and the optimism and anxiety that comes along with hoping that 2017 is going to be as great as I need it to be.

Around the holidays I look forward to recuperating and having some quality time with my home friends and family; however, I also use this time to reminisce on the past year.

December always finds a way to creep up on me…I mean 365 days is quite a long time, and a lot has happened in the past year. When the rambunctiousness of finals and school subside, I enjoy flipping through the memories of the past year.

This year has definitely been an eye opener for me.

I’ve had some of the highest highs and some of the lowest lows. I went abroad and learned more about myself than I ever could have imagined. I have attempted to start mapping out the next 5-7 years of my life with graduate school planning. I’ve taken tests that have defined my future success.

I’ve met some of the most inspiring people- people that make your soul happy when you finally reunite with them. I’ve been faced with situations that I thought were unbearable, but with the support of friends and family I’ve conquered them. It all sounds pretty vague and a bit cliché, but everyday I’ve learned something new: either in school, through interactions, or self-exploration.

One of my biggest accomplishments this year was learning to let loose and be independent.

In the past, I’ve been scared to be alone. My insecurities and anxieties have crept up on me and knocked down my self-esteem; however, this summer was my first step to true independence. In my 6 weeks abroad, I visited 4 countries, 8 cities, and I met hundreds of people- each with a story.

If I had not taken the initiative to seek out adventures, then I probably would not have learned so much about others nor myself.

The most satisfying feeling after a three-hour lecture was going on the Tube in London and never knowing whom you’d find.

Some days I would ride the Tube without a destination in mind, get off at a random stop, and see where the day would take me. Something as mundane as public transportation provided me an escape from the endless hours of studying, and ultimately helped me discover myself in an unexpected way.

While my summer abroad quickly wrapped up, the lessons, people I met, and the memories have stayed with me. It’s always refreshing to see my peers, even if it’s just for a few seconds on the way to class.

After being abroad, I learned that I am able to conquer whatever I choose to in any sort of environment. I learned to be more adaptive to my surroundings, which has absolutely impacted the past semester.

This semester was probably the closest I’ve been to thriving since being abroad. My grades have excelled, most of my relationships have improved, and overall I’ve become a more well-rounded person. While some relationships didn’t last as long as I intended, I’ve learned to adapt and attempt to focus on the future instead of the past.

2016 was a whirlwind of a year, and reflecting on it brings about feelings of contempt, but also excitement. While 2016 was a rough year for a lot of us, I’m hoping that I can take my experiences from this year and start 2017 off right.

For now, the holidays bring about cheer and quality family time, but who knows what 2017 will have in store?

There I was… I sat in the cinema and watched The Magnificent Seven. I sat and watched in awe, but also in terror.

The glamorizing gunshots, explosions, and loud cries kept my eyes and brain glued to the screen; yet there was a part of me that was terrified.

It was the part of me that was in the exact same cinema on July 20, 2012, watching the Dark Knight Rises, in awe of the violence being committed on screen, as it was then unfolding into cries and panicked screams right before my eyes.

Even though there was chaos, confusion, and agony that surrounded me in this moment, it fell silent and shattered my heart.

Before I continue, I would like to give some backstory into who I am. Currently, I am at the age of 20 years old. I was born and raised into a Christian household, so my beliefs and convictions align with the teachings of Jesus Christ and the truth of the Bible.

Yes, most of which that I will be writing about, comes from a place of God in my heart and the experiences that I have faced with Him. But I hope you know that I am not here to preach at you about God, rather, I am here to share a little part of the larger story that He has written for me since the beginning of time. This story is of truth, hope, love, and redemption.

Ask yourself this question and be truthful about the answer. What has been the greatest challenge in life for you to overcome? Now, if you think that you haven’t had to overcome any plight, or if you think that your quarrel was compared to nothing, I would ask you to rethink your reasonings.

The great thing about this question, is that everyone will have a different answer. There is no right or wrong way to navigate this question. We all have different walks of life. This is what makes us unique. Some people are faced with moral dilemmas, some are faced with overcoming injuries, and others with pain and suffering. To each his own.

The greatest challenge I had to overcome was July 20, 2012: The Aurora Theater Shooting.

One man open fired in an auditorium full of human beings, killing 12 and injuring 60. This is not including those who had and still are suffering from various forms of mental illness.

My pain and suffering came in the form of internal stresses. According to the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders) and my Counselor, I met the criteria for PTSD and Delayed Response, which include depression and anxiety due to the events of that night.

Three months after the shooting, I was in shock. I was going from one thing to the next, without taking the time to stop and ponder what had happened that night. One day, as I was snowshoeing in the silent mountains of Colorado, I felt a boulder drop on me. Not a literal boulder, but an emotional one.

The images, sounds, screams, and smells from that night; It all came rushing through like a tidal wave. I felt guilt instantly and it spoke to me saying, “You got out alive yet there is a little girl who lost her life, and you stood in shock and did nothing to help.” This was every day when I awoke from bed and when I fell to sleep. I put on a façade of happiness when I went to school, but inside I was desperate and crying for help.

Friends and family would ask how I was doing and my response would simply be a complete lie; “I’m fine.”

I then began to think to myself about how I could fix all these internal struggles. How is a 16-year-old supposed to deal and cope with such a trauma? My time as a child and life prior to the event told me to run to Jesus, but there was another part of me, the part of me that is now living this pain and suffering, that told me to run away. So I ran.

How can I run to a God who let such events happen? So, I began to run to worldly pleasures, thinking that they would bring me comfort and fulfillment, but I was naïve, lost, and wrong. This way of thinking and “healing”, ended up bringing me further down the rabbit hole of depression.

Growing up in the church, I always heard that suffering was valuable. It creates perseverance and reliance upon God. I truly believed this, until I experienced it for myself. The only time I would actually call upon God was when I wanted Him to deliver me from these challenges. I was too scared to face the reality of what I was dealing with. So I continued to run from my internal struggles and bottled them up. Eventually… I popped.

I attended counseling for seven months to try and change the way that I thought about that night.

To see it in such a way that is positive, rather than negative. Not every session was great, but not every session was terrible. Progress was happening and change was enacting in my thoughts, but not in my heart. During these times, It was crazy for me to experience the phenomenon of my head and my heart feeling like they were a million miles apart.

My head would say one thing, but my heart would speak another. In my thoughts I knew the truths about God and pain and suffering, but my heart didn’t want to believe it. Depression dug down deep. Lies, anger, and bitterness towards life were tenants who rented out my heart and whose payment was in the form of hate.

I began to ask myself what I wanted to do. It seemed like no matter what I did, I would still feel empty inside. Nothing could fill this shattered, yet naïve heart. Thoughts of suicide began rushing into my head and at one point, I thought it was all I had left. But to escape this suffering by the way of death didn’t seem right to me.

There was this minute piece of light within me that told me there was more to life than pain and suffering. That one day, my life would impact someone.

From the wise words of Friedrich Nietzsche, “He who has a Why to live for, can bear almost any How.”

The truth hit me: the reason for my empty, broken, and desperate heart, was having a lack of purpose to live for.

From the novel, Man’s Search For Meaning, By Viktor E. Frankl, this man attempts to find reason in his pain and suffering, while he endures unnecessary acts of evil during the times of the Holocaust. While I read his experiences in detail, I began to see that pain and suffering is a way of life and that we are promised to cross roads with it.

In Acts 14:22 Luke writes, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom.” I don’t want to speak for Viktor, but something tells me he knew this truth. So I began to constitute that, even though I am guaranteed to suffer in life, the only thing that I can do, is change how I see it. James 1:2-4 began to have new meaning for me, “Count it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. And let perseverance have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

For far too long I chose to only see my current situation, which was agony and pain. I didn’t have a purpose to live, because I wasn’t living for anything except the depression that was killing me. I didn’t look beyond my current situation to see the glory and joy that would come.

Thus began the slow transformation of my heart and the way in which I thought. One of the biggest lies that I believe we as a human race have believed for far too long, is that pain and suffering is the end and there is no moving forward.

I lived this lie for four years too long. As God began to work in my heart over the summer of 2016, he allowed me to experience what positive things can come from pain and suffering.

From the life of Job, this man went through innumerable amounts of pain and suffering, yet at the end of the story, “… the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning” (Job 42:12). He experienced death and loss from his wife, children, and livestock, but after, God blessed him with more than what he had before. This isn’t the only truth that stands out to me, but there is one more that comes from verse five, chapter 42, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you…” What Job is saying is that he never experienced God in a true and intimate way for himself, but because of his pain and suffering, he was able to.

Job began to see God in a new way. His eyes were opened to who God is. Our God that is full of love, glory, majesty, joy, compassion, power, grace, and many more characteristics that my mind cannot fathom. Job experienced this. “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2).

Like Job and his life before pain and suffering, I too had only heard of God. Even after my trauma, I believed that I was worthless, unloveable, foolish, and weak. I believed that I was beyond saving, that I could not come back from this.

I gave up on God, therefore I gave up on life, but do you want to know what the funny thing is? God didn’t give up on me.

Even after running from him for four years, never truly knowing him before my suffering, and living in constant sin; He still loved and wanted me.

I saw and experienced His relentless pursuit and commitment of love and grace for my heart. I finally SAW the truth that God is love and He wants good things for me. Therefore, I stopped asking God to take away the pain and suffering and instead, I asked him to help me see it in a new way and to walk with me through it.

I came to this conclusion that, it didn’t matter what I expected from God or this crazy thing called life, but rather what God and life expected of me. To be in an intimate relationship with Him and to live my life as a light to those who are in a dark place.

Now it all comes back to the question I had asked earlier in my writing, “what has been the greatest challenge for you to overcome?”

By this time, I’m sure you have an answer, but I want to add a little more to this question… “and how did you overcome this?” Some of your answers may be like mine where you chose to let it defeat you, for others it may be that you whizzed on by with no problem, but for the rest, you haven’t faced it.

God has allowed me to experience such a trauma that I would have never dreamt of facing, but through this, I have come out on the other side as a testament to God’s faithfulness and to the truth that pain and suffering is a gift… because I now see the beauty in life and God.

The hope of my writing and experience is to illustrate that when pain and suffering comes, you shouldn’t run away out of fear or let it defeat you like I did. Rather, you should run head on toward the challenge and face it.

To quote Viktor Frankl once more, “Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.” Now, while you run head on into pain and suffering, know that God is with you every step of the way and that this momentary affliction, is no match for the glory that will follow.

“Sometimes the only way around suffering is to go straight through it.” -Anonymous

Growing up, I thought that I would go to college and make best friends the first week of school and we would spend all of our time together loving college and everything it had to offer. After all, Freshman year is supposed to be the best time of your entire life, right???

Well, not in my case. Not even close. In truth, Freshman year felt incredibly lonely and making real, genuine connections with people was much harder than I expected it to be.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like the people I was meeting – everyone was friendly, but I didn’t have the kind of friendship that I had with my high school friends.

I felt like I was doing something wrong, and I couldn’t help but feel disappointed in myself that I had ‘failed’ to make Freshman year as good as the hype….Freshman year didn’t feel like the best time of my life – it felt like a hard, lonely transition that I wasn’t really liking at all.

What I didn’t realize, is that friendship takes time to develop.  Yes, you might ‘click’ with someone automatically, but friendship is something that grows with both effort and time.

Last time this year, I couldn’t wait to leave school and go home for winter break. Now, a year later, I really don’t want to leave school, and would so much prefer to stay in Amherst where my life is. A big reason why is because over the course of the year, I have had the time to develop genuine, compassionate friendships.

The other day, I texted my friend Henry with a one sentence life update. He responded and I quote “I NEED TO HEAR ABOUT THIS” and within five minutes there was quite literally a knock on my door.

It may have been 9:57 am on a Sunday morning, but he was there ready to discuss and hear all of my thoughts, feelings, and reactions in person. And I was so happy he was there, because Henry is one of the most considerate listeners and friends I have ever met.

Even last night, I cancelled on seeing him because I was feeling sick, and this morning he brought me four packets of EmergenC – his personal cure for everything – and told me to feel better.

And Carly is my actual soulmate.

The other night I told her I was going to be asleep by 10 pm, yet every night with her is an actual sleepover with my best friend and we always have more to talk about (even if the lights are shut and we’re determined to go to bed) and the next thing you know it’s midnight and Carly and I have just planned out the details of our weddings and are sending each other pictures of dresses we think the other one would look good in. And the next morning we wake up at around the same time and I’m greeted with a ‘Good morning chickadee’ and Carly will put on a song we both love or something of that nature.

My best friend Gina is actually not even real. Like I’m so stunned and in awe of her kindness, grace, and just the person that she is that I don’t even know why she spends time with me. She is a real life angel who connects her faith with her passion for social justice and is a trailblazer who is doing her part to end sex trafficking. And she will quite literally text me after every time we hang out, saying this whole huge paragraph about how much she enjoys our time together. She is a blessing in every sense of the word.

And my friend Mike. I don’t even know where or how to begin because I genuinely don’t even know how it’s POSSIBLE for a human being to be so wonderful. Mike is the absolute full package – he is both funny and ridiculous, as well as incredibly insightful and brilliant at heart to heart conversations. I LOVE hanging out with him, and always feel like I don’t spend enough time with him (despite seeing him nearly every day) because every second spent with Mike is a literally ‘unreal how positive it is’ second.

Take a watch when you’re done reading 🙂

There are so many more friends I could brag about.

Rebekah is logical and her advice calms me down always and we girl talk it out as she takes off her makeup in the evening. Mariah is full of a big, beautiful energy and time spent with her is time spent laughing, but also learning. And I have so many other friends that are equally as extraordinary, but I don’t have the space to give them the credit they deserve.

The friendships that I have made are genuine, real, and make my heart feel warm and supported yet also challenged to be and do better. These friendships did not happen the first week of college.

In fact, they all took time.

Henry and I were put in the same theater troupe Freshman year, but quite honestly we didn’t become friends until second semester, and not best friends until over the summer.

Carly and I didn’t really know each other Freshman year, and didn’t become friends until we decided to live together – which is CRAZY, because it’s worked out perfectly.

And I met Gina briefly first semester, and we actually did immediately click, but our friendship took time to develop into the forever friendship we have now.

Mike and I went to high school together, and were always friendly, but it wasn’t until we got to college and became tour guides together that we started committing to our friendship.

If you’re going through a transition or just struggling to make friends in general, have faith that friendship really does take time to develop. I didn’t become best friends with any of the above, absolutely outstanding people immediately…instead, we became best friends through the process of committing time to each other, keeping it real, and expressing our admiration for one another.

So, don’t stress yourself out so much. Friendships take time to develop, and that’s okay. You got this 🙂

To connect with Ashley, click here!
ashleyolafsen@gmail.com

Check out Ashley’s book!

Survival of the Prettiest

Survival of the Prettiest is the book 19 year old Ashley Olafsen wished she had when she was younger. Survival of the Prettiest discusses body image, media, self-esteem, mental health, sexualization, and so much more in her interactive, engaging, and easy to understand book. In a stunning combo of storytelling and research, Ashley truly makes a difference and empowers individuals to reach their full potentials.

As an elementary school student, my teachers told me I was special, yet I struggled testing into the gifted program. When I was in middle school, teachers did anything and everything to suppress my energetic spirit so I would focus on the mindless busy work they gave us during class.

As a high school student, my dreams to change the world were shoved back in my face by a teacher who was convinced I was the poster-child for “a generation marked by entitlement.” Slowly but surely, I began to submit to the lies and social norms piling up on me until I lost my fever for life and surrendered to conformity.

Throughout my time in high school, the more I tried to conform, the more restless my spirit became. I began to do everything I thought I was supposed to do- do well in school, drink on the weekends with my friends, and serve my community every now and then. However, this translated to- mindlessly getting by in my IB classes, compromising my values, and allowing something I loved to become a chore. All along, I knew there was more, and I still had an inkling that this unhealthy season of conformity would come to an end eventually.

All of the misconceptions that suppressed what was special and unique about me began to disappear when I enrolled in IB Business and Management my junior year of high school.

My innate passions began to rise back to the surface and I could finally see glimpses of light in my future. Mind you, I loved every component of business, but entrepreneurship was the one aspect of the business world that did not entice me. Ironically enough, one event led to another, and I began through this class a partnership with Norwegian and Danish students to pursue social entrepreneurship, which ultimately landed me in Bergen, Norway the spring break of my senior year.

While there, I remembered what it felt like to be Regan again- this was the adventure I used to dream of when I allowed my spirit to explore freely as a child. This trip opened doors to opportunities, relationships, and answers that I had been desperately searching for during high school. It was my new Norwegian family who enlightened my eyes to the beauty that can be expressed in serving others through entrepreneurship.

Like science demonstrates, when light floods a room, darkness has no choice but to leave- the experience shined light into the dark place I had been justifying. My spirit woke up, it began to stir violently in my chest, and it flung me into a journey to finally discover who Regan was purposefully created to be.

While there, I met a man who invited me to an entrepreneurship institute during the following summer. Why not go, right? Who knew that would be just another divine arrangement that would draw me closer to where I’m supposed to be. During my time at the Institute, I was trained to teach their entrepreneurship education curriculum and challenged out of my comfort zone in more ways than one.

Oddly enough (I guess I’m just slow), I still wasn’t all-in on this whole entrepreneurship thing.

One of the speakers at the institute was the Director of Entrepreneurship at the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia who, towards the end of the week, asked me to be his intern starting that summer. Opportunities to engage in entrepreneurship continued to bombard me, so I finally caved, leaned in, and decided to enjoy the ride.

How? I resolved to always answer, “yes” to every entrepreneurial opportunity that presented itself. All throughout high school all I heard people tell me was “no,” so I decided to transform my life and the lives I encountered by replacing the sea of no’s with a sincere stream of yes’.

At this point in my journey, I’ve discovered being an entrepreneur is like being a hipster. I true hipster would never call themselves or think of themselves as a hipster- they just are. Yet, there are tons of people who try to be hipsters (some being more successful than others). Well, that’s how I see entrepreneurs. Anyone can be an entrepreneur; I really believe that.

However, I also believe that some of us are created to be entrepreneurs. Just like true hipsters, I never wanted to be an entrepreneur or intentionally set out on any entrepreneurial endeavors; it just happened to me, I am an entrepreneur, whether I like it or not. That’s when you know you were created to do something: when it simply happens to you.

You can fight it, run from it, or embrace it.

I fought being an entrepreneur and I ran from it, too, until I finally decided to embrace it. However, embrace is a weak word for accepting why you were created, it would be more accurate to say I live it. I eat, sleep, and breathe entrepreneurship. I’m known for it no matter what circle of influence I’m in.

Whether it’s starting a club to explore social entrepreneurship in Athens, being in charge of fundraising in a campus ministry, or a pesto business that combines all my passions into a unique business model, entrepreneurship is what I do, the entrepreneurial mindset is how I filter problems and ideas, and I approach everyday as an entrepreneur who believes tomorrow is going to be better than today for myself and everyone else in my spheres of influence.

You never know how or who or what will lead you to your purpose, but as long as you believe you have one and put yourself into uncomfortable and untraditional situations, you will discover who you are and whose you are. 

There’s no way I would have discovered I’m an entrepreneur without an encounter with Norwegians, the Institute, and pesto. God is funny how he orchestrates our lives in order for us to be totally oblivious to our purpose, so he can be totally glorified in His purpose.

“Have you ever heard of a TED talk?” is a phrase that I have come to know and love because I’m constantly asking this same question to my friends, family, and random people walking through Tate Plaza (UGA Student Center) when they ask what TEDxUGA is when I promote the annual event.

If someone had asked me this same question about 8 months ago, I would have replied with something along the lines of “I’ve heard of them, and they’re pretty cool.” But today I can say that TED talks have shaped my college career thus far. A few weeks before the start of the fall semester, I saw a picture on Twitter. It was an advertisement for a class called TEDxUGA, and I thought “why not?” So I signed up.

Walking into class on the first Tuesday of the school year, I was scared as hell because I had no clue what I was getting myself into, and I was especially nervous when I discovered that I was the only freshman taking the class. Soon though, my initial worries became irrelevant as our class became a family. Our work wasn’t traditional since most of it stemmed from helping presenters prepare their talks.

My fear subsided as the semester moved forward, and I fell in love with the TED platform.

I watched tons of talks featuring some of the most interesting people that I had ever heard speak. Their stories taught life lessons, gave insights into the world, and sparked interests in the minds of thousands. I thought it was awesome. Since taking the class, I have learned that every experience, every story leads to something larger than we could imagine.

I’ve heard stories that have changed the way I think about people and events, and I’ve realized that there’s a TED talk for almost anything. Want to know how the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge got started? There’s a TED talk for that (Nancy Frates, “Meet the mom who started the ice bucket challenge). Ever wonder what it’s like to be the son of a terrorist? There’s a TED talk for that too (Zak Ebrahim, “I am the son of a terrorist. Here’s how I chose peace”). All around the world, people have stories and ideas worth spreading.

Our stories shape our lives, and lucky for me, my story is just beginning. Since taking the TEDxUGA class, I’ve met incredible people and have been given amazing opportunities. I’ve become an intern for the New Media Institute in Grady College, I’ve been given the chance to write for this website, and I’ve made friends that are sure to last.

I hope that my experience with TEDxUGA will give me useful media skills, but I hope more that it should benefit me in the wisdom I will gain from those working with the program, and maybe one day I’ll have a story worth telling on the TED stage.

So what’s the point of all of this?

Focus on the lessons learned from each experience, good and bad, because you never know what you can gain from a story. Oh, and always pay attention to advertisements on Twitter, because you never know where they might lead.

“Have I officially lost my mind …” When I begin to think about what has happened in the last four months of my life I begin to think that statement above may be true…

I moved to Atlanta back in June 2014 and began my first career as an individual and family counselor. I finally had the life I had been working so hard to get. Financially supporting myself, living in Buckhead, buying that outfit I always wanted, going out with friends … But why did I still have that feeling that there was something more to life than this … This constant feeling that I needed more, a constant chase to acquire more things to fulfill this void.

You know that saying, “Be careful what you ask for” well that saying hit me like a ton of bricks.

In January, I made a last minute decision to attend the Passion Conference here in Atlanta. Ultimately, this conference reignited a flame within my heart and shined a light on the fact that I have been searching for fulfillment in all the wrong places. Following the conference, another prayer was answered. I finally found a church in Atlanta, called Grace Midtown.

Attending this church, my desire to lean on God rather than on my own strength grew more and more each day. I found myself longing to grow closer to Him. One night at church, I found the courage to walk over to someone from the church to ask for prayer and a prophetic word (and to be completely honest, if someone would have asked me if I knew what a prophetic word was a year ago I probably would have just awkwardly laughed and said sure.) The person, who prayed for me, ultimately brought me to tears.

God spoke to my heart and made it clear “Ashley, you are valued, you are a Godly woman.” Those words went to the core of me. It resonated in me, that I have been looking for fulfillment in all the wrong places whether it was through athletics, relationships, or superficial things they always left me feeling “not enough” or “not worthy.” I was a slave to fear, to comparison, to judgment and what I had been longing for was freedom of these things.

That night I finally was able to feel Him wrap his arms around me and I heard him say to me I find my true identity and worth in Him.

After that night, the hunt began to find my next step in this crazy adventure we call life. God began to point the arrows leading me to making a life changing decision. I had the opportunity to go to South Africa and see a part of the world that was indescribable. I fell in love with the people and place. After returning home, I knew I needed to see more of God’s creation and to meet new people and cultures to help me grow.

I started the hunt for the “perfect” job or internship overseas. I heard about The World Race back when I was in college and I currently know someone in the organization. But anytime I thought about it I would tell myself, “That’s way too intense, Ashley, not what you are looking for.” God has a funny way of putting the things that scare us the most right into our laps.

A couple weeks passed and I went to my House church and explained to them my burning desire to help others and the need to grow personally and spiritually. After I discussed this with the group, someone prayed for me. During the prayer all I kept hearing was “Lord, take away her fear, take away her fear and open the doors for her.”

That night I didn’t think much of it. But the next morning, I woke up and heard “Ashley, Be Brave.”

Next thing I knew, I was on The World Race’s website looking at the different routes. Basically, I had filled out the entire application and interview within two days (usually takes much longer than that.) By the following week, I found out I was ACCEPTED!

This is when the panic really set in, that’s when I got scared, but I knew if it didn’t scare me it wasn’t worth it.

So I will be embarking on the World Race in September 2015 and return July 2016.

The World Race is an 11 month Christian mission trip to 11 countries around the world. One of the unique things about the World Race is that it’s not only a mission trip but also an intensive discipleship program designed to launch my generation into our specific kingdom calling.

Through the World Race, my team and I will serve in partnership with Churches and ministries in local communities to spread God’s love, plant churches, work in orphanages, minister to women and children trapped in prostitution as a result of human trafficking, and bring the restorative hope of the Father’s love to many tribes and Nations.

“There is only one way to learn. It’s through action. Everything you need to know you learn through the journey.” So here I am … I am willing to risk my comfort zone to find my true identity in Him and through that I will find my calling, my heart song. I believe I can only heal others and free others as much as I am whole and free.

“He wants not only your whole heart. He wants your heart whole.” Through taking big risk, big dreams are achieved. Please follow my journey by subscribing to my blog: ashleymiller.theworldrace.org

I come from a family of entrepreneurs. I grew up helping my father with our real-estate business in the northeast suburbs of Atlanta. I grew up surrounded by the realities and hardships of that business.

My father not only encouraged me to think beyond the confines of a normal nine to five career, but instilled in me the work ethic and initiative required to keep a business afloat. Coming from this background, I’ve never hesitated to pursue my ideas, even if doing so was risky or difficult.

I began my entrepreneurial endeavors selling toys to my younger siblings. As I grew older, I was never short on business ideas, from modern art to dummy firearms for military training. I was determined to start a business even as I made the transition from a small private school to the University of Georgia. After a year of exploring college, I settled on something I was passionate about turning into a reality. I began working on Classic City Cotton the first week of summer after freshman year. With the help of my family, friends, and fraternity brothers, Classic City Cotton took a life of its own.

Bow ties are seen as the fun, preppy, carefree alternative to the more businesslike necktie, so putting one on shouldn’t be equally carefree and fun.

However, learning to tie an authentic bow tie is difficult, and this has stymied their recent resurgence in popularity.

The thought of having to learn to tie a bow tie and repeating the process every time one wears it, discourages men from wearing one. Many men simply stick to the easier to tie necktie and ignore the bow tie altogether. Other companies have tried to solve this in the past with clip-on bow ties (also known as pre-tied), but between the horrendous quality of clip-on ties currently available and the fact that most men see them as “cheating,” clip-on ties haven’t really caught on.

Classic City Cotton’s high quality cotton bow ties, hand sewn by local seamstresses in Athens, can be taken on and off without having to untie them. These bow ties are not clip-on ties, they must be tied at least once like any other authentic bow tie would. The difference is that once tied, the bow tie can be removed from the neck without having to untie them due to a secure and unique fastener integrated into the band.

When I’m asked what I want to do after college, I tell people I’m already doing it. I see these four years as an opportunity to explore and enjoy life with 34,000 other people doing the same, but not a reason to put off what I want to do with my life. My heart is in starting and building businesses and I want to be in the middle of the action, whether it be Classic City Cotton or something else in the future.

I hope that my story inspires others to act on their imagination and turn their ideas into reality. My best advice to others is to not wait for permission or approval, there will never be a good time to start your own business, the present is as good as it gets.

You don’t need an earth-shattering or fool-proof business plan. You just need a reasonable idea and the perseverance and passion to make it something great.

Ancel Briley
Owner, Classic City Cotton
classiccitycotton.com
ancel@classiccitycotton.com