I feel I have grown so much in the past year, even though I still feel as though I'm stuck in 'pause mode' that has become my life lately. Moving out on my own, doing things my way, making decisions based on me and not my parents' recommendations (even hunting for new doctors was a weird process).
It recently occurred to me that life has this weird double-standard: You are not guaranteed happiness, but if you're unhappy, everyone urges you to change your life so that you become not so. Therefore, we can handle contentment, but not unhappiness? And as such, I have realized that if I am unhappy, it is only up to me to change it.
I have searched for a full-time position in anything (really) for an entire year. Last October, I was still in school, but applying constantly so I would be able to forgo the whole "live with the parents" scenario. Unfortunately, no one has even interviewed me in the past year. I don't know if the issue is with my issue with selling myself or my talents, or that everyone who applied had more experience than me - no one will ever know, but I have come to find that I don't have much faith in my abilities. I know what I am "better than," but I don't know what I can truly achieve.
In my head, I have always been capable of being famous. I think I'd be great at it - Not Britney Spears-level fame, but more...Anderson Cooper fame. He can be serious, funny, have a great fan base, and still live a typically normal life. I always thought that would be the life for me, even though I don't know how to reach that goal. I will be famous, but for what reason? That has still yet to be determined...but in order to reach that level of success, it seems as though I need to believe in myself. I truly don't. It's a harrowing experience when you realize that you can only depend on yourself, yet I don't even have faith in what I can do. I don't even know who I am.
Self-discovery is the next goal for my life. More importantly than a job, more than being happy, I want to be able to depend on my skills and have the confidence that I will succeed. I lack that confidence that everything will turn out okay.
Another real-world experience that I was not expecting was the inability to "reach the next step" in your life as easily as it was in college. For instance, if you want to succeed in college, you could have poor grades but then you study harder, meet with the professor, go to study groups, take your time on tests, etc. and your hard work should be eventually rewarded. In the real world, it hasn't been as simple as apply more, talk to more people, re-write your resume (again and again), re-write your cover letter (thousands of times over), and yet... no reward is guaranteed. Whereas in college, you can dig yourself out of an academic hole, the real world does not show you as much mercy. You're dug in a hole, and the shovel is thrown about a mile away.
It's easier said than done to "believe in yourself," or "apply as much as you can," or "get to know the right people." But either way, I'm going to try. Like my roommate said, "Now is the time to try," and who cares if you fail? I'm still young, and I still have a lot of things to understand. But if I want to stop being unhappy, something needs to change, and I'm willing to do that.
No comments:
Post a Comment