About Me — Carter Owen. Optimizer, Optimist, and Humble…
By: Mindful Musings
Tags: About Me, Introduction

Optimizer, Optimist, and Humble Observer of Humans

Yo yo — pleasure to introduce myself to you. My name is Carter and I’m 22 years old, about 35 at heart, and I’m obsessed with the human condition. There’s nothing more fascinating to me than being alive, and I’ve spent much of my time thus far trying to figure out how to do that in the best way. I’ve learned a lot along the way and realized I have a gift in my willingness to experiment on myself and communicate that with others.

I’ve always enjoyed writing — my favorite classes in high school and college were English. Although my preferred medium is the spoken word, as it’s where I believe I best express myself (I had a basketball podcast in college with my best friend and mentor), writing helped me find and develop my voice, something I hope to continue throughout my life.

I graduated from Georgetown University in May with a major in Management and minor in Psychology, and currently work as a consultant at an Innovation & Design firm in New York City. However, I hope to serve as a therapist when the time is right. All my life, I’ve been motivated to help others, strongly instilled in me by my overly selfless mother, Jesuit education, and emotional sensitivity. I consider myself a very soft, emotional person at heart who’s built up a tough skin out of necessity. I credit going to high school in New York City for a lot of that; the friendships I made there (mostly with people who didn’t look like me) helped me see a glimpse of the real world for the first time.

As you can see, I’m very callous and threatening

Growing up a straight white male in a well-to-do family, I’ve never suffered from anything too catastrophic, but I have my fair share of trauma. Mental illness (BPD & bipolarity) runs rampant along my mother’s side (along with alcoholis) and emotional unavailability on my father’s. Makes for a deadly combo to raise a child. Speaking of children, I’m the oldest by 5.5 years and my brother and sister (twins) are pretty high maintenance, so I’ve developed an extreme self-reliance that has become my best friend. Until I was 20, I lived broken, but through a lot of reflection and peacemaking, I have built unwavering confidence and love for myself that I try harder than anything to pass on to everyone I interact with.

I started writing on Blogger (now Medium) primarily as a creative outlet to make sense of everything that happens in my life, but also to hone my skills in self-expression for my future endeavors. I plan to write multiple books and host a podcast (hopefully all well-received) over the course of my life centered around psychology-rooted self-improvement without the bullshit or agendas. I’m a laid back guy who loves to make a fool of himself, but take what and who I love very seriously and protect them more than anything.

Thanks to my obsessive personality and immigrant-instilled work ethic, achieving my goals really doesn’t seem like hard work to me, more so just what I’m supposed to be doing. That doesn’t mean things always go well for me though — I’ve endured multiple big setbacks in my life, and because I feel very strongly, they’ll stick with me forever. That being said, I love when things go wrong, because it means I have something new to learn. More of my thoughts on that can be found here.

I sleep a lot better now knowing I can take a punch — from this past Thanksgiving Break.

If you’re reading this, I hope you check out my work — it would mean the world to me. I’m not trying to make a career out of writing (at least not on Medium), but I really do believe I have some words of wisdom to offer the world in a compassionate, personable, and accessible way.

I don’t think Medium has a DM feature (which they totally should), so feel free to reach out any time at carterowen@icloud.com for any reason. I don’t check my email often, but promise I will get back to you.

Much love, and thank you for letting me tell my story.

~ Carter