Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 237

“I shot my father in the brain but I was acquitted because he...

“I shot my father in the brain but I was acquitted because he abused me.”

“Serving in the army, you can say that I was a pawn in another...

“Serving in the army, you can say that I was a pawn in another person’s game. But you can say the same thing about someone that works at JP Morgan. Sometimes it seemed like the elites were playing chess with our lives. They trained me to jump out of planes and kill people. I didn’t have anything against the Iraqis. I wasn’t fighting against them. I was fighting to get home to my family. So was I a pawn? Maybe. But if it weren’t for the higher-ranking people in the military who saw potential in me, and encouraged me to get an education and become a leader, I’d never even have achieved broad enough horizons to ask these types of questions.”

“I was the stereotypical kid from Harlem. I was a good student...

“I was the stereotypical kid from Harlem. I was a good student until 4th grade, but then I started going down the wrong path. My friends started making fun of me for raising my hand too much, so I stopped participating in class. Instead of playing on the playground, I followed my friends and went to steal bikes. I had no direction by the time I finished high school. So I decided joined the army. To my surprise, I placed in the 96th percentile on the entrance exam. My superior officer recommended that I stay late and study for advancement, so I did. Then he recommended that I go to City College, so I did. I just finished twenty years of service, and now I want to go to law school. Sometimes I look back and think that the army took the young years of my life. But I was going nowhere. If the army hadn’t taken my youth, I wouldn’t have these older years.”

“I felt relief when I finally got evicted from my apartment. I...

“I felt relief when I finally got evicted from my apartment. I was always behind on my rent, so I spent so much psychic energy worrying about what was going to happen. It was like waiting for a surgery. I was just glad it was over with. I’d rather be homeless. The worst part of being homeless is that people associate it with craziness. I have a gym membership. I go to movies, but mainly so I can get some sleep in the theater. I’ve never begged though. If I got hungry enough, I’d rather steal. There’s something so dehumanizing about putting yourself completely at the mercy of another person.”

“My mom was a single mother, and she worked two jobs so that she...

“My mom was a single mother, and she worked two jobs so that she could send me to Catholic school. All she wanted was for me to make good grades, but I just brushed it off and didn’t try. She’d buy me extra workbooks for the classes that I was having trouble in, but she was always too busy to check if I was doing them. I graduated, but my grades were too low to get into a good college. I knew she was disappointed, but she’d never bring herself to say it because she was too nice. Then recently, I went on a cruise with my mom and my aunt, and my aunt got drunk one night and started screaming at me. She screamed: ‘You aren’t a man! You’re a pussy! Look what you did to your mother!’ My mom just stood there listening, and didn’t say a thing. Because I think she wanted me to hear it. She just didn’t want to be the one to say it.”

“This picture is from our senior class trip to Disney World. I...

“This picture is from our senior class trip to Disney World. I was much more confident then. I thought I was going to be a business owner. I’d recently gone to regionals in a business plan competition. I’d grown up poor, though. I didn’t even have my own bed until I was 13. So right out of college I was making more money than my father ever made. And I got content. I should have kept my dream alive. But I just went straight out and got a job, then a car payment, then a mortgage, then a family, and pretty soon I had so many obligations that I couldn’t change my path.”

“One day you wake up and you’re 45 years old. When I was...

“One day you wake up and you’re 45 years old. When I was young, I thought I’d be a CEO by now. I thought I’d put in 100 hours a week for as long as it took, and nothing would stop me. But then I had a family. And things changed. Expenses grew and I had less time to devote to my career. Recently I’ve been between jobs. I thought I’d have a nice retirement and education fund by now. I thought I’d have peace of mind. But now it’s starting to look like I’m going to have to work until I die at my desk.”

“I graduated college early because I was eager to get into the...

“I graduated college early because I was eager to get into the real world, but the job search is tougher than I imagined. I think people are afraid to hire me because I’m young. I’ve probably applied to over two hundred jobs. I’ve found that for every ten applications, I get one call back. And for every five call backs, I get one in-person interview. I’ve had seven of those so far.”
“Do you wish you hadn’t graduated early?”
“I try not to think about it. I could apply to ten more jobs in the time I spent thinking about that.”

“We first met at a café in the West Village, and I was...

“We first met at a café in the West Village, and I was completely taken by her.  But the next day I had to leave for a six-week trip to Afghanistan.  Soon after I arrived, I bought her a traditional Afghan locket that holds a small prayer.   Instead of a prayer, I wrote a little poem, and stuffed it inside.  It said: ‘Mountains and months away, and I’m still haunted by one afternoon in New York.’”

“I used to be 300 lbs. I thought that when I lost all the...

“I used to be 300 lbs. I thought that when I lost all the weight, a light switch would suddenly flip on and I’d be driven and inspired. But the self-judgment just shifted. Sometimes when I’m jogging, I’ll see a woman who is fitter than me, and I’ll think: ‘No matter how much I run, I’ll never look like that.’ It’s the same voice in my head as before. Only difference is now I’m better at telling it to shut the fuck up.”