A Perfectly Imperfect Union: Reflecting on America 250 with Joshua Jones

The Whole Again Podcast: Mindfulness and Resilience through Kinstugi Wisdom airs every Monday, Wednesday and Friday with Pause Breathe Reflect Microdose Meditations, Growth Mindset and Mindfulness Tips, to help us transform our scars into healing and resilience.

And between May and October, I'm sharing a new series I'm calling: A Perfectly Imperfect Union. It's about connecting with every day folks as they reflect on America at 250. Conversations will air every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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On this episode of A Perfectly Imperfect Union, I travel to the Pelican State and connect with Joshua Jones, a rising senior studying marketing at LSU.

Joshua's take on America starts with persistence: the idea that progress means creating space in places never built with him in mind. He talks openly about being a young African American man navigating rooms that didn't always have room for him.

His Kintsugi wish for the country is education, the equitable kind that took him from community college to LSU, because he believes it's what teaches people to think critically, check their own bias, and actually hear each other again.

And his question for you and our next guest:

What advice would you give the Founding Fathers, knowing what America is dealing with today?

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Hey there. It's Michael. Welcome to Whole Again, the show that's here in support of you creating a meaningful life and the person you're becoming. And I'm excited to share a new series with you that will air this summer as America turns 250 years old, which is still pretty young relative to many other countries across this big blue marble that we all share.

The series is called A Perfectly Imperfect Union. In 2022, I rode my bike across America from Astoria, Oregon to the Lincoln Memorial. My wife drove our RV, and she had two co-pilots, Jester and Hope, two springer spaniels And when we did it, America was coming out of the pandemic and we were hurting.

Hurting from things that had happened prior to the pandemic, of course, going through what we all went through. And at that time, and this is something I still believe today, is that we were entering an inflection point. An inflection point for us to hopefully pause, breathe, and reflect on who we wish to become as individuals, as communities, and as a country.

As I pedaled across America, I wanted to share America's beauty with others, her natural beauty and the beauty of her people. And I also wanted to share where we were hurting As America turns 250, I believe Kintsugi, which is something we use as a metaphor here at Whole Again, is a perfect metaphor for where we are as a country.

There's so much beauty to celebrate, and we can also acknowledge that parts of us feel broken or are broken. But we can find a way to come back together, just like Kintsugi teaches us. And when we do, we don't try to erase or cover up where we have scars or blemishes. We highlight them in gold, and we celebrate them as symbols of our strength and resilience.

Kintsugi is called the golden repair, and in essence, we can see beauty in something that's perfectly imperfect. During this series, I plan to speak to at least two people in each state and the District of Columbia, so 102 conversations with real folk, as I like to say. We're gonna let the celebrities and the big influencers have their day somewhere else, but here I wanna reach out and talk to real people and listen to their reflections as they think about America turning 250 years old.

And my hope is, is that you'll tune in to at least one, if not all 102, 'cause my theory going into this is that you'll hear different perspectives. Some may be aligned with yours, others may not. But my hope is that you hear the goodness in your fellow citizens and realize, as Maya Angelou shared with us, "We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike."

We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike. I've had the privilege of traveling all over the world and all over this country, and this belief is something that I hold deep inside of me. So yes, I do believe that we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike. And if you're ready to get to know one of your perfectly imperfect neighbors like all of us, take a healthy breath in and a slow releasing breath out and get to know Joshua Jones

Joshua, my friend, good to see you. Thanks for joining me here on A Perfectly Imperfect Union. I'm glad we could make this happen. I know we've been very persistent, so how the heck are you today? 

I am doing well. Thanks for having me, and I am really excited to answer the questions that you have prepared for me.

Cool. All right. So I know a little bit about you, but for those that don't know you, can c- you, can you take a moment to introduce yourself, and what state are you currently in? 

Yeah. So I'm Joshua. I am a rising senior studying marketing at LSU, Baton Rouge. I'm from Louisiana, and one of the things that Louisiana is known for is our culture.

So if you ever come down for Mardi Gras, we are pretty much known to have the best parties and the best food. So that's how I can describe Louisiana, is our sort of southern hospitality. 

All right. Very cool. So outside of, like, I know a lot of people do associate Louisiana with Mardi Gras, so outside the good food and culture and the big parties, is there anything else that's really cool about Louisiana that people might not know about?

Because not everyone's been down to that great state. 

Yeah. So if you come down to Baton Rouge, if you're coming down to Baton Rouge, we have a live tiger on LSU's campus. Oh. So we actually are on our seventh tiger. So that is something that we have. His name is Mike. He is... He has his own habitat. It's gated.

He's not gonna come out on campus. Like, he does not walk around campus. It's, it's pretty gated. And, and that's just, and that's just really cool to see is a live tiger, and we have at LSU, that school, so we have two students that could take care of Mike, our, our live tiger. So he's fed. They usually, you know, make sure that they take care of, you know, his habitat around him, making sure that- The grass is clean.

So yeah, they do a pretty good job of taking care, taking care of Mike. 

All right. Mike the Tiger, and I guess when LSU football plays Auburn football, there are tigers everywhere. So, uh, very, very cool. I love it. So, so through this series, I've been asking people their thoughts of America as she's turned 250 years old, and one question I've been curious about is this one.

If, imagine if you got together with all your friends down there, uh, maybe a, a, a tailgate party, uh, before an L- LSU football game, and they ask you, "Hey Joshua, what does America mean to you?" How do you answer that question? 

It's a very deep and a complex answer, I would say. I think- 

Sure ... 

I think what America means to me is that, like you said earlier, it's about being persistent.

I think that whenever we go through adversity, not only within ourselves, within society, I think that it just gives us the opportunity to advocate for ourselves, and I think it also just reminds us that there, you can create spaces where spaces are not always meant for people. Meaning that, you know, throughout the course of American history, you know, there are times where me being a person of color, me being an African American male who's so young, there are times, like, there are not spaces for me.

So I've just learned how to create spaces and create a sense of community. So, so I do think that when it, when we talk about America, like, I just think about how persistent we are and the opportunities that we can be able to create. So just having that entrepreneurial mindset of just starting out Don't know what you're doing and then figuring out as you go along, I think that's the beauty of America is you don't know until you put yourself out there.

Yeah, I love that. And also, you know, I, I appreciate you sharing that for you, there, there might be communities or there might be, uh, times where you don't have a space to, like, really feel like you feel safe and, and, and you belong to. And so that's also part of many people's experience here in this country and, but this sense of persistent, like, you know, like keep at it.

K- keep on trying to make it just a, a bit more perfect as we, we go forward. I definitely appreciate that as, as well. And I know that every family that is part of this country has a family story about their history with this land or this country. You know, some families were here well before it was known as America.

Uh, we have families that have been forced here through slavery, and that's part of their story, and obviously there's a lot of immigration stories. So do you know much about your family's own story with this country or this land? 

I actually do not. I, I have literally said to myself every single time that I would love to get a DNA test and learn more about my family's, like- Ah, yeah

origins and history. I think it's just really, really cool to be able to understand, like, where you come from because obviously, um, you know, like being an African American male, our, like, our culture was taken away from us. So I never get to, like, really understand, like, where I come from and, like, my DNA.

It's just only through the course of, you know, American history through the education system that we surround ourselves with. So I would really love to explore, um, like about, like, my family's history and the origin. But I'm sure that people, you know, have this, guys, you know, obviously- Like our ancestors, you know, during the-- Yeah, like our ancestors, you know, they've been through slavery, they've been through the triangular, um, trade route.

So obviously they were, you know, brought here, you know, like to America and, you know, they had to like work in order to like make money in order to, you know, pr-provide for their family. So, so with that, it's very much like passed down like to generation to generation because obviously, you know, slavery back then, it has similar...

They say history repeats itself. I think that history has similar effects. And then like, like there's modern slavery. I think there are like distinguishable like similarities between one another that can coexist. So because of that, I, I don't know much a lot about it. So I think that just getting to have that DNA test and get to understand a little bit more, like that's something that I would, I would love to do, and being able to understand like where I come from.

Very cool. Well, and part of your overall studies, as you finish up your studies at LSU, that could be some, a future project, so to dive into your, your family's history. So I know, um, current day there's a lot of discussion around how divided we all feel. But I'm curious, are there moments where you feel really connected to your fellow neighbor or your fellow American?

Even if you have like maybe differences of opinion where you disagree, where you, you've, you have that sense of, of connection, like we're, we're, we're here and, and we, in a lot of ways we're all connected. So are there moments like that c- that could pop up for you? 

Yeah. So a few weeks ago I was in Chicago for the very first time, and I actually got to- Oh, cool.

Yeah. It was so much fun. I got to attend a conference, it's called the Grit Connection Seminar through Reliance College, and I got to be on University of Illinois Chicago's campus for the entire week from July 25th through August 1st. And something that I've learned throughout that entire week is People with various backgrounds and people with very similar stories, oftentimes we can be able to find similarities, and even when we do disagree, I think that it just challenges us to really think about our biases and just thinking about how we perceive the world around us.

Because I can acknowledge that I have bias that I know that I grew up with because obviously it stems from family and education. Like, that's like the two biggest things of how your overall perception of the world is just based off like your family, your education, your religion, et cetera. So because of that, you know, obviously, like I have my own like internal bias.

And so whenever like I attended the seminar, it just really challenged me to like think more critically and being able to challenge my own biases, and being able to like challenge each other's thoughts, which I really did appreciate a lot. So just coming together and realizing that we don't always have to dis- we don't always have to agree, but we can be able to challenge one another and be better than we were before and gain new insight and more knowledge, I think that's the beauty of America.

I think the problem with, like with modern America, it's, it's the fact that it's become more polarized. We just don't know how to have that dialogue to where we can disagree respectfully without having to attack the person and not the argument. So I usually refer back to the presidential debates from, you know, like 2008 to, you know, 2012 because those were like really good prime examples.

And you know, me being so young at the time, like in elementary school and going into middle school, like I was just like not aware. Because when you're in elementary school, you're just not aware about how, how political your life is until like you look back and you're just like, "Wow, like these policies really do change."

Yeah. 

So because of that- I was able to, like, go back and just be like, wow, like, I miss those times where, you know, we disagree, but we were focusing on the argument itself and not just really, like, attacking the person. And then towards the end of the debate, you can just shake hands and then, you know, after the debate is over, you could continue to have the conversation or whatever have you.

So I think just coming back into that realization, I hope that we can be able to come back into it. I just think that how the landscape media and how people in our everyday politicians and how they go about debating legislation and, you know, talking amongst, like, their colleagues, I think that's just, like, a prime example as to how it, it trickles down into how we have conversations with, like, our everyday, everyday, uh, everyday peers.

Yeah. Well, what a great experience going up to Chicago and being with a, a, a bunch of other students and just learning how to navigate, um, different perspectives and also sort of checking in on where we all have bias. So what a, like, a what a wonderful opportunity for you and your, and your, uh, peer group to be able to experience that.

I know I wish I had an experience like that when I was in college 'cause, yeah, to your point, we all have, um, some bias. And when we have awareness on them, we can at least check ourselves before, uh, we, we show up in a way that may not align to, like, the values that we, we wish to honor. So and the, your conversation and what you shared about, like, how we communicate and how we debate really does lead itself into the next question I've been asking folks.

I've been using the Japanese art form of Kintsugi as a metaphor for this series where pottery breaks and they can put it back together, and instead of hiding the scar lines, they paint it with gold. It becomes the golden repair, and they become symbols of our strength and resilience. So if you could pick, like, one thing to work on that could help us reconnect and heal and potentially grow down the road in this Kintsugi spirit, what would it be, Joshua?

Yeah, that's a really good question. I would say definitely education because I think that education is such a... Like, it expands and it, and it takes very, like, leaps and bounds. And so I think that education is something that I would love to change, especially because, you know, me going into college, I, I didn't go to LSU originally.

I actually went to community college, and I did the, I did it for a year, then I transferred to LSU. So because of that, you know, obviously I had that opportunity to where Like I saved so much money of going to community college that when I went to LSU it was, you know, it was a seamless transition. And so I definitely do think that, you know, the access to education is very, very important because obviously it teaches you on how to be self-aware and be very critical about the world around us.

And I think it just allows us to be Allows us to continue to gain knowledge, and that could be very applicable into, like, our everyday lives. So having the-- so have the experiential learning of education, I think that's something that's very valuable because what you, like, what you learn in the classroom can be able to go when you study abroad or whenever you go traveling, you pick up on these things because it shapes you to who you are, but it also gives you the sense of the other person's lens.

Because we don't know what other people are going through, so whenever you do get those opportunities to travel, or you get those opportunities to have conversations with strangers, you obviously are getting a peek at their lens as to what they experience. And so then whenever you do go back into the classroom or you go back into your professional workspace, you use that to be able to educate yourself on the policies and how to advocate as well as, you know, changing the curriculum.

So I think that if we focus on education first and make it more equitable, then I think that we can be able to tackle, you know, everything else within our society because it really does start with education. 

I love that. And, you know, to-- is how education is a portal to greater empathy for our common person.

But as they often said, say that, you know, knowledge is power. So when we have more knowledge and we have critical reasoning and decision-making skills, then we can hopefully find a way to come together and solve some of the complexities that we have. So we'll round out our interview or conversation, uh, with a question from the person I just chatted with.

So, so Katie has a question for you, and you're gonna have to brush off your AP History textbook for this one. And in turn, you get to ask a question of the next person I chat to-- chat with in this series. So Katie's question involves the Bill of Rights. So we have ten amendments. She wants to know out of the ten, do you have one that speaks to you most clearly or resonates with you?

And why is that? 

I would say for me, just the First Amendment, you know, freedom of speech, press, religion, you know, all of that. Because I think that it, I would say, defines us who we are because of our family and our culture. And I will say that as time progresses, you start to develop your own self-awareness.

So I think that Because of the, because of the First Amendment, I mean, obviously I think it's just more authentic because we get to be our true selves, and I think it's just also, I think it's just also very important that we get to have these conversations and getting to be able to understand that these conversations are what makes America the way that it is.

And I don't... And I think that if we did not have that First Amendment, then I don't think that we would be having these conversations today or me coming onto this podcast. So I do think that the First Amendment can also be very challenging, too. So it's a very, it's a very nuanced and a very complex, you know, like amendment to like break down, but I do think that it, it does open, it does open up for discussion.

It does open up for debate. It does open up for curiosity as to how we go about that as society, and how does that amendment change from when it first started to in the 1700s to now. Just I, I really, I, I really, I really would like to see like how it changed, you know How it changed, like, over time. So yeah, I think the First Amendment would have to be my favorite, for sure.

All right. Well, great answer. This was one of the more difficult questions from guest to guest, so bravo, sir, for, um, speaking to the First Amendment. I- that's awesome. So Joshua, what question do you have for the next person I chat with in our series? 

What advice would you give to America from todays that the past can learn from?

So meaning that, and just to further elaborate, so in today's America, obviously there are, like, a lot of issues. Like, what advice would you, you know, give, you know, from the past, like, from a past Americas that could be applied to todays? So that'd be, like, my question. 

Okay. So, like, I'll just, I'll play it back to you so I make sure I get it right.

So looking at, like, America today, what advice would you give to, say, the Founding Fathers about like, "Hey, like, when you created this country, this problem sort of emerged in 2026. Uh, just wanna give you, like, a heads-up on that, so if you wanna do a do-over or do a little amendment, if you will, uh, we're gonna give you some ample time to do that."

So, um, so is that about right? 

Yeah, 'cause I think that, I think that question maybe would, would be pretty good. I just, I think it'll also... would have to put, you have to, you know, put yourself in the Founding Fathers' shoes- 

Sure ... 

almost. So that is... So yeah, I'm really excited to see who's gonna answer that question in your next episode.

Very cool. Well, Joshua, thank you for coming on and joining me, and the ripple effect you're putting into the world and helping us become a more perfectly imperfect union. So I appreciate you. Um, so again, thank you. 

Yes, thank you for doing this. I think that you're doing great, and I hope that this podcast inspires people to do great things for the world.

Awesome. Peace.

One of the things I love about this series is that we've run the gamut across the generations, from Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha. We have a recent college grad in Emma, and Joshua, who is looking towards his graduation at LSU. And everyone brings so much wisdom. I love Joshua's energy, and I love the fact that we were persistent in making this happen.

He is a busy guy. He is creating a multitude of amazing ripple effects, so I'm glad we were able to get this done. Let me know what came up for you after hearing Joshua share his thoughts on America in year 2050. And I hope you'll check out the rest of the series as I continue to connect with everyday folks trying to figure this thing called life out.

But until the next episode, remember to celebrate your scars as golden symbols of your strength and resilience, and don't forget to have fun storming the castle.

And if you wish to learn more about creating beautiful ripples and how to prevent a bad moment from turning into a bad day, please visit my website, MichaelOBrienShift.com, and sign up for my newsletter called The Ripple Effect. And join us each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday here at Whole Again, and discover how you can heal, grow, and become more resilient, and celebrate our scars as golden symbols of strength and resilience.

Until then, remember, you can always come back to your breath. You've got this, and we've got you.

Key Takeaways

Joshua Jones is a rising senior studying marketing at LSU who emphasizes persistence and creating space in places not originally built to include him.

Jones advocates for equitable education as his Kintsugi wish for America, believing it enables critical thinking, bias awareness, and better communication.

The episode is part of 'A Perfectly Imperfect Union' series running May-October, featuring conversations with everyday people reflecting on America at 250.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Joshua Jones?

A rising senior studying marketing at LSU and a young African American man navigating spaces not always designed to include him.

What is Joshua Jones's Kintsugi wish for America?

Equitable education, which he credits with his own journey from community college to LSU and believes teaches critical thinking, bias awareness, and mutual understanding.

What is the 'A Perfectly Imperfect Union' series?

A series running May-October featuring conversations with everyday people reflecting on America at 250, airing Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

What question does Joshua Jones pose to the next guest?

What advice would you give the Founding Fathers, knowing what America is dealing with today?