It is the year 2010, and finding a job is harder than it has ever been in my lifetime. Perfect time to graduate college, eh? Thank you universe.
This is the story of my search. I would call it a “job search” but it’s more profound than that, or at least I have myself convinced it is. “Career” isn’t quite right either. Gen-Yers like myself have “career” all tied up with “purpose.” We want jobs that feed our souls as well as our bodies. Unfortunately, in my case this push and pull has me stuck in the middle, neither making ends meet or being able to decide how to make a difference. I don’t want a job that simply makes me money, so I’m afraid to make a move that might leave me stranded in a job I hate that hurts my soul but with a salary too high to leave. I also don’t want to be so altruistic that I end up going broke trying to heal the world.
And then there’s the question of happiness. What will make me happy? Seems like it should be an easy enough question to answer. It’s not, because it’s all tied up with the above dilemma. What kind of work would I enjoy? What are my interests? I’ve been workshopped and career-tested to death and I still don’t know the answers to these questions.
Here’s some background:
I was a high school dropout at one point, who turned his life around and went back to community college and ultimately graduated from a big ten university last December, five years later than his peers. I have a great turnaround story but a sketchy academic record. I’ve been working retail since I was sixteen. Now I’m twenty-eight, and I’m treading water financially, working for a big bookstore and terrified that I might get stuck in retail like the other dozen or so degree-holding shift managers and salespeople I work next to every day.
Our parents and our TV shows convinced us when we were kids that we could do anything we set our mind to. I totally bought it. As such, I sometimes find myself jealous of people with more limited options, which officially makes me an evil, entitled American, not taking advantage of the many opportunities available to him, and the spiral of self-loathing continues lower and lower.
So, over the next few weeks I will explore the history and the future of my choices and I hope that someone gets something out of it, even if that someone isn’t me. However, in my eternal and ridiculous optimism, I am convinced that this blog will be a celestial beacon, shining like divine guidance on the answers to my questions and wiping away all of my frustrations. That’s how it works in the movies, right? There’s always some magic bullet, you just have to find it. Or, stumble upon it, as it usually goes.
