Self-reflection comes at the strangest times and when it does, you can't brush it away like a pestering mosquito - you have to sit with it, marinate in it, and be willing to ride that sucker to the end.
This time last year I was essentially unemployed, had moved out of my parents' house, and was seriously contemplating changing career paths as frustration had set in. I was qualified for nothing but was willing to try anything....well....almost anything.
Hit fast forward >>. Suddenly I've found a way to combine my existing psychology degree with my new-found love for teaching and TA-DA! Magic, freakin' magic. Part of me thinks that the reason for my struggle and strife was to teach me patience - and lots of it. I mean seriously, I work with Junior High kids, THAT'S patience! But if you would have told me that the reason I had no job, no money and a big stack of rejected resumes was that I was supposed to be learning something, I probably would have told you to stick it.
Patience is a big lesson to learn. As a highly industrialized, urbanized, technologically advanced, Tweeting, status-updating, texting, blue-toothing society, we don't often have to wait more than a couple minutes for what we want. We are so used to this type virtually instant-gratification, that when we are told "not right now" and made to wait, we get cranky. Really cranky.
Solution? Stop. Take a deep breath. Count your blessings and tell that guy behind you in line at the grocery store to quit rushing you. Why? You're teaching him a lesson.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
post-grad frustrations
I think I'm beyond the point of saying that I've "neglected" my blog, but rather I've just plain forgotten about it for the better part of a year. I could argue that it's partially due to the fact that the period of transition between graduation and starting a career has almost rendered me speechless. Though not because nothing has happened in the last year, but rather that so much has happened that I was hard-pressed to find a way to coherently express my frustration without being unreasonably crass and foul-mouthed about it. That's right - frustration.
From the time we enter Kindergarten, or for some of you, Preschool, our lives for the next 12 years or so are pretty much laid out in terms of education and routine. For the most part, we spend weekdays going to school, playing sports, learning to socialize with our peers and so on. Then when Grade 12 comes and it's time to graduate, there are two common choices: find a job or go back to school. If you've chosen option 2, congratulations, you've won yourself an average of another 3 - 4 years of school, where you will stress, lose sleep, and if you're lucky, finish with almost a full head of hair still intact and a really expensive piece of paper to hang on your wall.
Good decision right? You've opened up your career options, right? Not entirely. What I have learned, more so than anything, is that you've now paid for an opportunity to apply for jobs, be told you're "not quite the right fit" and that you have been bumped for "someone else who has more experience." Great. Thanks. Awesome. Where does the experience come from? Oh, well volunteering gives you experience but you don't need school for that, (so already we're over-qualified) and sorry guys, volunteer hours don't pay bills. Trust me, I tried.
Despite my displeasure (understatement of the year) with this entire situation, would I have chosen differently? Not at all. Do I wish someone would have been a little more brutally honest about how hard it is to get yourself going again after you've reached the end of your, up until this point, fairly linear and straight-forward routine? Absolutely. If there is one piece of advice I could give to those coming up on the end of their scholarly journey, it would be to move forward with extreme patience; and while you're waiting for your "big break", find a job doing something you love because then at least the time you spend waiting won't feel like an eternity, but rather a nice little holiday from those late night study marathons and buckets of bad cafeteria coffee.
From the time we enter Kindergarten, or for some of you, Preschool, our lives for the next 12 years or so are pretty much laid out in terms of education and routine. For the most part, we spend weekdays going to school, playing sports, learning to socialize with our peers and so on. Then when Grade 12 comes and it's time to graduate, there are two common choices: find a job or go back to school. If you've chosen option 2, congratulations, you've won yourself an average of another 3 - 4 years of school, where you will stress, lose sleep, and if you're lucky, finish with almost a full head of hair still intact and a really expensive piece of paper to hang on your wall.
Good decision right? You've opened up your career options, right? Not entirely. What I have learned, more so than anything, is that you've now paid for an opportunity to apply for jobs, be told you're "not quite the right fit" and that you have been bumped for "someone else who has more experience." Great. Thanks. Awesome. Where does the experience come from? Oh, well volunteering gives you experience but you don't need school for that, (so already we're over-qualified) and sorry guys, volunteer hours don't pay bills. Trust me, I tried.
Despite my displeasure (understatement of the year) with this entire situation, would I have chosen differently? Not at all. Do I wish someone would have been a little more brutally honest about how hard it is to get yourself going again after you've reached the end of your, up until this point, fairly linear and straight-forward routine? Absolutely. If there is one piece of advice I could give to those coming up on the end of their scholarly journey, it would be to move forward with extreme patience; and while you're waiting for your "big break", find a job doing something you love because then at least the time you spend waiting won't feel like an eternity, but rather a nice little holiday from those late night study marathons and buckets of bad cafeteria coffee.
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