Jake's 340 Blog

  Men’s Mental Health (MMH) Foundation for those with troubled backgrounds Have you ever heard of Andrew Tate? For those that don’t know, Andrew Tate is one of many influencers and online gurus who have created a community of men that promotes an “Alpha Male Lifestyle”, encouraging men who feel lost, alone, and unsure of themselves to strive for a lifestyle of pre-defined, shallow “success” and ultimately lessons in misogyny that exist to supposedly empower men. While the way described here seems rather unattractive, it is a practice that has worked and ultimately create a community of toxic men that feed into each other’s negativity and pessimistic view on the world, ultimately pushing them away from being people who can have empathy for others, especially women. The rise of the "male loneliness epidemic" is a topic of conversation relevant to this movement and something deeply misunderstood. The topics and approaches mentioned is something I’d like to counteract. Focusi...

 One way I think about as a way to make the world a better place is to show empathy to people as much as possible. This is something I try to apply in places in my life I feel it matters the most. My profession, family, friends, people I meet in general, situations where empathy is difficult to have, I try my best to have more perspective in any situation for not just others but myself as well. I think it is something that helps keep me in a more adjusted position to be able to also provide that same understanding for others. I feel empathy is something that is not given as often as it could be and it's not hard to understand why. It's exhausting. That's why I want to put an emphasis on that considering I am already a fairly sensitive person as is. I might as well apply that in a way that can help others navigate difficult situations and lead people on projects or campaigns that require me to work closely with people and help them perform the best they can as a team. To be ...

Looking after a cat was something I've always wanted to do but never expected to have to do at this time in my life until I saw one sitting at my front door, the night before my birthday. This was almost 5 months ago. I found this little grey cat sitting at my porch on the 2nd floor of a condo style student housing off campus, sitting right in-between me and the door. I couldn't ignore her. On top of it all, she is a talker. She was meowing as if she were trying to communicate to me, walked up to me and rubbed against my leg and hands. Clearly, she was a cat that loved people. I opened my door after walking around her and left it open, inviting her in if she wanted to visit my home, and she did. I now own this cat after confirming she's not owned by someone else and went through every procedure I needed to when owning a new cat. I became a cat dad much sooner than I ever expected to in my life I named her Mitsuki. In Japanese, it means "beautiful moon", which felt...