"If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?"- Steve JobsI’ve been back to work for 3 days now after my vacation and already I’m right back where I was the day before I left. I’m exhausted, overwhelmed, stressed out, and burnt out. I was talking with Nick’s mom the other night and she said she wants to work hard and long enough to have five years where she can just be. You know, retirement, relaxation, peace. So we’re all killing ourselves for five years?? It’s been eating at me for weeks. I don’t want to waste the majority of my life for five years of freedom.
Maybe it’s my age. I’m only 21, I have a lot of plans, schemes and dreams to pursue and I feel like they’re getting squashed here in this office day after day of mediocrity. These are supposed to be the best years of my life right? Where I can make mistakes, be broke, and learn about who I am. I make fairly good money, it’s enough anyway. I think I’ve nailed down a plan for the future and now I just feel like I’m biding my time. I feel like I’m wasting my youth on faxes and grading tests I don’t even understand.
I’m getting restless again. The idea of working through college, taking two classes a semester terrifies me. Now that I know what I want to do, I want to DO it! I’m excited and eager to do something meaningful and I can’t do that stuck here in an office taking orders from people who think they’re second to God because they have an MD at the end of their name. It’s time for a change, and I think I have a plan but I’m keeping it in a hopper for now. Let’s just say nothing’s going to happen for a good 5 months though. So for now I’m going to try to at least not get fired while I’m here, do my best to work hard but also remember that this job is not who I am, it’s not even a little bit of who I am, it’s something I do between the hours of 8 and 4:30. Jackie’s words get me through the day “you go, you do your thing, and you leave.” She’s my sage friend.
And I know, I know, I left school because I was so unhappy “wasting my youth” but the truth is, I think I always knew I’d go back to school at some point and I don’t regret taking this time off. I finally got the time to sit down and think about who I truly am. I remember there was a point last fall when I sat down to write what I knew about myself and nothing came to my mind. I couldn’t think of one thing about myself other than I have blonde hair and green eyes. It terrified me to realize how little I knew myself. I feel like I’m in a better place now. Stronger, more independent, wiser, more mature. But I still have a fire inside that reminds me I won’t be 21 forever. I will never get back these days. I would rather owe $20,000 in student loans than look back on this time in my life and realize I let it slip away, that scares me more than debt.
I don’t want to give to much up though so I’ll stop here. My plans change so much and if I spread them around too much I’ll start sounding like a flake and I really don’t think that’s what I am. I really am just trying to find my way and it just so happens that I’m doing that by trial and error, but who isn’t these days? I’m young and I want to make some mistakes, I want to be messy and spontaneous. You can’t do that from behind a desk.
Posts
