The Life & Times of The New Middle Class
“If a window of opportunity appears, don’t pull it down the shade”
– Tom Peters
“A reader today, tomorrow a leader”
– Margaret Fuller
Narrowing the gap between the dreams of tomorrow and the realities of today, one conversation at a time – The Life & Times of The New Middle Class was a blog and Facebook community created as a place to share thoughts and feelings about politics, current events and what matters to you.
TLTNMC was created in 2010 and moderated with content generated from this one man for about 2 years before his life and times called him away from the great debate. The community experienced exception growth in its first year and tons of great conversation. One of the goals in creating the forum was to see if Americans, despite their different affiliations; political, geographical, religious, social, economic, etc. could find common ground as Americans and push the conversations back to the being about the people and by the people. A core group emerged, a cross section of the country, and they formed lasting friendships. A truly beautiful thing to be a part of and even more rewarding experience post TLTNMC.
While the community still exists, as stated before the moderation by and content from The Average Joe ended in 2012 as “Endurance” began.
Endurance / I’m Still Standing
“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Endurance was a tumbler blog for those on the journey of changing their life.
The path to a better place is one with many trials and even setbacks; the important thing is that you keep moving. Endurance was designed to be a place to share stories of success and failure, and how your story can inspire others. This blog’s goal was to help folks find their endurance though one man’s journey finding his.
Endurance ran from July 2012 to 2015.The life & times of The Average Joe were greatly altered during 2015. The latter half of the year brought a transitional period as the direction of the posts began to change and gave birth to a re-brand of the blog as, “I’m Still Standing”
The blog itself became a personal journal and venting outlet as The Average Joe navigated some of life’s most challenging circumstances. The content was much more personal and less organized in structure. Most posts were generated on mobile devices and were less polished in execution.
While there is much healing and evolving left to do for the Average Joe, this #season has come to an end. A return to the “Opinions of One Man” has come…
In One Man’s Opinion
In 2010, I began a dream of mine by starting a blog on WordPress.com, “The Average Joe”. The blog was aimed at letting me get on my “political soapbox”. In an effort to gain viewers, I created a Facebook page for the blog, but life kept me busy so my writing was intermittent. In 2011, I revamped the blog and page under a new name, “The Life and Times of The New Middle Class”…. I began joining other political pages and forums and joined in the debates. I saw how rude, cruel, biased, and insane those communities were and I embarked on creating a utopia of sorts for the free expression of opinions and thoughts on politics and life in general. The page grew fast, membership is up to 1,172! The community that was created and the people that shared on there every day was wonderful, I gained a new family of sorts. Managing, growing, maintaining, and moderating the page began to be a beast to keep up with. Events in my personal life began to need all of my attention, so my activity over a 5 month period grew to an almost complete stop. While the page was still growing and doing fine, I found myself in a period of my life less consumed with the political battlefront and more inspired to write about my “opinions” and feelings on a broader array of topics, really anything I feel like at the moment. So a new blog was created, “In One Man’s Opinion”. The period of life that gave birth to the IOMO was short lived as the life and times of this Average Joe were turned upside down. The direction of my writing went that of chronicling a personal journey over the next 4 years (2012 – 2015/2016) that included a separation, a reconciliation, self-improvement, extreme weight loss, career changes, tragically another separation that ultimately led to a divorce, weight gain, spiritual renewal, single parenthood, and all that came in between. Posts began coming from a new Tumblr Blog named “Endurance”, (which was later changed to “I’m Still Standing”) and were much shorter, less polished, raw, and very personal. Fortunately, the journey has brought me back to a place where I feel my writing is more inspired again and topical. While there is still healing left to be done, and this Average Joe is far from a finished product I feel it is long past time for me to get back to living the dream sharing the opinions of this one man ; )
Average Jos Media
Do you ever hear something on the radio, see something online, in social media, or just on life randomly that you have a reaction like you all of a sudden care about …that you thought you didn’t care about?!?! Then THIS is YOUR kind of podcast!!!! Join the Average Jos; Average JoBu and Average Joe as they dive into topical conversations, share stories and experiences, play games, have guests, and occasionally engage in some playful mischief diving into these very things.
Life is tough, it can be hard, and a times seem unbearable. I have found in my experience it helpful to try and find the beauty in even the most mundane things of life. In that moment, where I can see beauty in bumper to bumper traffic, leaving the office after a 10 hour day, or even pouring down rain; my perspective and outlook on life really begins to change. I believe that a picture can tell a story, and with the moments I try and capture, I also try and find the right words to convey that message. The hope with this blog, is to share some of that perspective with all of you. Perspective, as in life often gives us two roads to choose from. Finding beauty in the hard times, keeping your faith, and staying positive will be the road less traveled more times than not, For me, choosing that one has made all the difference in the world, hope it will for you too 😉 – The Average Joe
Life is a work in progress, the key is to focus less on arriving at a destination and focus more on the journey. If you figured it all out today, what would be the point of tomorrow? Enjoy the process of being a work in progress. Join me in talking about life and all that lies in-between! – The Average Joe
Average Jos Media on WordPress
AJM Digital and the Two Roads Blog
Life is tough, it can be hard, and a times seem unbearable. I have found in my experience it helpful to try and find the beauty in even the most mundane things of life. In that moment, where I can see beauty in bumper to bumper traffic, leaving the office after a 10 hour day, or even pouring down rain; my perspective and outlook on life really begins to change.
I believe that a picture can tell a story, and with the moments I try and capture, I also try and find the right words to convey that message. The hope with this blog, is to share some of that perspective with all of you. Perspective, as in life often gives us two roads to choose from. Finding beauty in the hard times, keeping your faith, and staying positive will be the road less traveled more times than not, For me, choosing that one has made all the difference in the world, hope it will for you too 😉
– Average Joe
TLTAJ 