Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Or Is It Too Late?

As i fearfully approach the age that puts me closer to 30 than to 20, i find i am increasingly aware of just how little my current life resembles what i had hoped it would. Add to this the fact that i now know almost as little about what i want to be when i grow up as when that question was first posed to me and it leaves a horrible, smirking demon-monkey clinging to my back, picking nits of Hope and Positive Feelings out of my hair.

"Self, what the hell were you expecting?" i sometimes ask myself. When i was in high school, if i had tried to imagine what my life would look like right now, i probably would have said that i'd hope to be living on my own, working in some field in psychology or at least in school for it, engaged or married, content. Currently, i am none of those things, and at this point, don't even know what i want to be doing When I Grow Up.

Do i want to write? (yes). Do i want to act? Do i want to design, counsel, program? Then, after picking one (or two), i have to decide on the particulars inherent to each profession. You can't just go to a company and say, "i want to program for you". You have to have a specific area picked out and then you have to go to some kind of school to get a piece of paper that says you know how to do it. Then, maybe the company will decide to hire you. And only after a few years of working in that chosen field will you realize whether or not you want to be doing that in the first place.

Hoo boy. That amount of time just sounds to me like a lot of dollar signs i don't have. Unfortunately for me, i only spent two years in school, dropping out for reasons i won't get into here. I saved myself the misfortune of going into debt for a major it turned out i didn't care much for, but here i am, two years later, with no degree. This severely limits my job opportunities, and so, my ability to spend money to figure out what i want to be doing.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers details three specific factors in jobs that people describe as "satisfying." These are Autonomy, Complexity, and Connection between effort & reward. These are the things i want in a vocation. Any less, and i am sure i will eventually go mad.

My question is, will i be sane by the time i attain this mythical job?

1 comment:

  1. Don't get discouraged because of monetary setbacks or look at your life through someone else's "ever judging" eye. It is only ever to late when you give up on yourself...and the decisions that we make mold us into who we are (ie.: I "wasted" 3 years of my life in Arizona...did I? Or did I learn that I could do it on my own?). Anything you want you can have...if you want it bad enough.

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