So here we are again, folks.
Expanding on my post from last night, I thought I would share a bit more of my story, and some of the inspirations that are driving me towards change, and a more fulfilling life.
I was lucky enough to not need a job until I was 23. Because of that, I never took the opportunity to find employment. I went through high school and college without the need for work (although to my downfall, I am now thirty thousand dollars in debt from college because I refused to get a job). This experience in life has given me a very unique perspective that has seriously affected the way I want to spend the rest of my life.
Because although I wasn't working at a 9-5 job, I was working on going to school, and experiencing new adventures. My first year at a four-year university I decided to sign up for a study abroad program simply to see if I would get accepted. My friends and professors were all very encouraging, but there was of course the one very loud naysayer: My mother. Knowing that she didn't even enjoy the fact of me moving FORTY FIVE minutes away to school, I was preparing myself for the penultimate negativity.
And when I was accepted, it came.
And I told her I would make it happen.
To my utter joy, it did happen. It was an amazing experience that I would not take back for all the world. This kick started a few other experiments, some short-lived, but I still did them simply because I wanted to see if I could: I trained for a 5k with no experience in running whatsoever, and ran a ten minute mile when I started the race. I took an entire year of Hindi because I had an obsession with all things Indian, I went on a retreat without knowing anything about it because it felt right.
All of these experiences melded together in my subconscious.
And that is part of the problem.
Now that I'm an adult and out in the "real" world, it is only logical that I find employment. I have bills to pay, after all.
But the problem comes from the lack of employment.
Chris Guillebeau over at The Art of Non-Conformity mentions in A Brief Guide to World Domination that if you've been on the planet for a couple of decades, that should make you an expert at *something.* But going at employment the conventional way has only landed me at a slow food joint in my home town. Hours are terrible, tips are too, but at least I'm being a grown up and working, right? Of course I have to work at a joint like this since I've never had a job. You gotta start somewhere, right?
Am I the only one who thinks this crap?
Or am I coming off as self entitled?
I'll leave you with this for now. I'll come back to this later.
My biggest issue is that I have always looked at life from a slightly different angle than everyone else. I was the person who never really stopped asking "Why." As I grow older, this personality trait has led to several unintentional arguments (most of them with my mother), and so for a while I thought something was wrong with me. In college, I was trained to think from a different angle for my degree. Sociology actually helped me feel like I fit in somewhere, because here are all these other people who are convinced the world is not the way it seems! (And I'm referring to the researchers, not the other students.)
But keeping this in mind, I hope to try and take Chris' advice in his book (also called The Art of Non-Conformity), to try and do what I love to make some extra income, and possibly do a few impossible things along the way. This blog will contain a few rantings, hopefully some sociological based analyses (without the stats- I hate statistics and am awful at math), and explore life after college while not accepting that this is all there is to life.
And with that, folks, I will return to you with a couple of my Impossible Things and a short review of the book (as far as I have read) in the next few days.
Expanding on my post from last night, I thought I would share a bit more of my story, and some of the inspirations that are driving me towards change, and a more fulfilling life.
I was lucky enough to not need a job until I was 23. Because of that, I never took the opportunity to find employment. I went through high school and college without the need for work (although to my downfall, I am now thirty thousand dollars in debt from college because I refused to get a job). This experience in life has given me a very unique perspective that has seriously affected the way I want to spend the rest of my life.
Because although I wasn't working at a 9-5 job, I was working on going to school, and experiencing new adventures. My first year at a four-year university I decided to sign up for a study abroad program simply to see if I would get accepted. My friends and professors were all very encouraging, but there was of course the one very loud naysayer: My mother. Knowing that she didn't even enjoy the fact of me moving FORTY FIVE minutes away to school, I was preparing myself for the penultimate negativity.
And when I was accepted, it came.
And I told her I would make it happen.
To my utter joy, it did happen. It was an amazing experience that I would not take back for all the world. This kick started a few other experiments, some short-lived, but I still did them simply because I wanted to see if I could: I trained for a 5k with no experience in running whatsoever, and ran a ten minute mile when I started the race. I took an entire year of Hindi because I had an obsession with all things Indian, I went on a retreat without knowing anything about it because it felt right.
All of these experiences melded together in my subconscious.
And that is part of the problem.
Now that I'm an adult and out in the "real" world, it is only logical that I find employment. I have bills to pay, after all.
But the problem comes from the lack of employment.
Chris Guillebeau over at The Art of Non-Conformity mentions in A Brief Guide to World Domination that if you've been on the planet for a couple of decades, that should make you an expert at *something.* But going at employment the conventional way has only landed me at a slow food joint in my home town. Hours are terrible, tips are too, but at least I'm being a grown up and working, right? Of course I have to work at a joint like this since I've never had a job. You gotta start somewhere, right?
Am I the only one who thinks this crap?
Or am I coming off as self entitled?
My biggest issue is that I have always looked at life from a slightly different angle than everyone else. I was the person who never really stopped asking "Why." As I grow older, this personality trait has led to several unintentional arguments (most of them with my mother), and so for a while I thought something was wrong with me. In college, I was trained to think from a different angle for my degree. Sociology actually helped me feel like I fit in somewhere, because here are all these other people who are convinced the world is not the way it seems! (And I'm referring to the researchers, not the other students.)
But keeping this in mind, I hope to try and take Chris' advice in his book (also called The Art of Non-Conformity), to try and do what I love to make some extra income, and possibly do a few impossible things along the way. This blog will contain a few rantings, hopefully some sociological based analyses (without the stats- I hate statistics and am awful at math), and explore life after college while not accepting that this is all there is to life.
And with that, folks, I will return to you with a couple of my Impossible Things and a short review of the book (as far as I have read) in the next few days.
4 comments:
You should look at it the same way I do. In this economy, at least you have a job. A crappy job is better than no job at all. Yes, it is in fact a shit job. But sometimes it's fun...sometimes lol. And sometimes interesting people do come in. Everything is a path that will push to your next step of becoming what you are. You just have to be open enough to see what's truly there. Not to just piss and moan about how their life is better than yours (yes I know I am guilty of something like this but I feel entitled since I am actually taking steps but it's very much a waiting game since I am forced to run on everyone else's time constraints i.e. school schedules). Learn from what they have to teach you.
I am in fact very happy to be employed at all. That's not the problem. I hope to try and expand my point some time in the next day or two.
I want to live a non-conventional lifestyle, because I don't buy the concept of working until you drop for a job you don't enjoy. I am very happy to be employed, but I want something more out of life.
I'm in the same boat with you. Hence why I'm finishing a degree that I'm going to throw out the window, moving out of state, and going to school for tech theater. I'm pretty sure there are more of us out there than you think.
But how many of us are doing anything about our lives?? At least we're working on it.
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