How To Find Your Forever Job

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“Oh, you’re not going into the medical field? Good luck…”

Life is so weird, have you ever noticed that? One day you’re 5 years old and the only thing you’re worried about is the outfit your Polly Pocket has on or if you’re going to choose apple juice or chocolate milk when you get to the end of the lunch line. Then, what feels like a week later, you’re 22 years old, waking up 10 minutes before your 9 am shift, digging through dirty laundry for your favorite pair of pants, and shoving a Poptart in your mouth, (even though you told yourself this was the week you were going to start eating healthier,) as you drive to work. You then find yourself wondering why the heck you couldn’t just stop snoozing your alarm so you didn’t have this problem… everyday. You would think a lesson would be learned by now, but surely the cycle will be repeated tomorrow.

Throughout all of the chaos of our domesticated lives, we’re forced with the decision of choosing a career. That means a forever job. Do you know how long forever is? It is a very, very, very long time; so if you don’t like what you’re doing, forever is going to feel even longer.

Teachers will give you advice, counselors will insist you take the Myers Briggs exam, and your parents will remind you that they always know best. (Which, in my case, this was proven true.) However, picking a forever job is scary and I’ve found out that unless you’re going into the medical field, people tend not to care about what you’re going into and your conversations will come up very short – and I think that’s bullshit.

“Find out what you like doing best, and get someone to pay you for doing it.” – Katherine Whitehorn

The way the world seems to work is by insisting that people who go into the medical field are always going to be secure; there will always be a job available and they will be secure in their finances. Whether this be the case or not, it would also be true to say that people in the medical field who do not have passion for their work will spend the rest of their lives wishing they had done something else; and that goes for anything.

In my 22 years of living, I can name about 22 different things I’ve wanted to do. I won’t name them all, but let’s have a little fun here.

I remember when I was in junior high, the only thing I wanted to do was to become a veterinarian. (How cliché of little ol’ me.) I even requested information from Bel-Rea Insitute of Animal Technology because I would always see their commercials on TV. I’m pretty sure I lied and told them I was 18 years old just so they would send me a brochure.

Then, after watching Jennifer Lopez in “The Wedding Planner,” I had quickly reverted from my animal loving ways and switched over to a Bridezilla’s only hero. Yeah, I wanted to be a wedding planner. My grandma quickly shut that idea down, which now I am thankful for, but at the time I remember being so mad that she didn’t “respect da vision.” But really, who am I kidding? I can barely stand working in retail so how would I ever deal with bitchy brides and their posse. I was on to the next!

From there on out, I wanted to be anything from a inner-city English teacher, to an anesthesiologist, (I spelled that without looking it up because that’s how serious I used to be about this career,) an occupational therapist, a nurse, a marketing director, and even a cosmetologist. I can’t even do my own makeup.

My life has been a series of unknowns and what-if’s. What if I became a nurse? I would always have a job available to me. My paychecks would be super nice, and I get to work with people; a perfect match, right? Wrong.

Why would anyone, including myself, want to spend hours in school, preparing myself for a job that I have no passion for just so I can have a little security?

“I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same as ‘making a life.’” – Maya Angelou

Throughout my years of schooling, I’ve really only ever liked one subject and that was English. I think it had a little to do with being absolutely terrible at any math more advanced than Algebra I and realizing that the Pythagorean Theorem probably will never help me solve any real-life problems.

I could study for hours for a biology test and get it handed back to me with a big fat F on it but I could get handed the topic for a paper a day before it was due and get an A. Writing has just always been something that has come easier to me than most things and it’s something I will always enjoy. Like anything, its time consuming, its annoying, it hurts my hands, and it takes a lot of work. Not everyone will agree with what I write, not everyone will understand it but I’m here to tell you – in writing – that that is okay.

The simple understanding that writing can either solve problems or make them worse is an amazing concept to me, and just like any form of art, it is an expression. Words can change the way people look at things, they change the way people feel, and they craft stories on paper and in text that are sometimes harder to speak out loud, they can change the world.

In life, there are going to be many times where you find yourself doing things for other people. Often times, we don’t know how to do things for ourselves because we’ve never been taught how to. It’s always been “treat other people how you want to be treated.” It’s always been said that putting yourself first is selfish. Why? What about treat yourself? That’s it, just treat yourself to something, anything, you enjoy and allow other things to flow from that point in your life. I think that is where happiness starts. Happiness starts from understanding what you love, not what everyone else does – and trust me, it’s taken me 22 years to even start understanding that, so I get that it’s hard.

With that being said, if you don’t like your job, I think you should quit right now. Seriously, call your boss and tell him to suck a big fat one. Just kidding, don’t do that; but I do think you should think about quitting. I think you should think about what you love, make a list, write it down. (*winky face*.) What do you like to do? Are you doing that right now? If not, figure out how to change it.

Imagine if I enrolled in nursing this coming semester. Imagine how unhappy I would have been going for something just so people would be little more excited when I told them what I was going to school for. “Yeah, I’m going into nursing!” “Wow, that’s great.” Why would I ever care about that? Why did I ever care about that?

Life is weird, that’s why.

So I’ll take the “Oh, okay’s,” and the “that’s an interesting choice,” comments while I remember that I’m doing something I enjoy and earning a BA in Journalism.

Words can be twisted into false ideas or they can be used to combat the truth in the world. It’s all about how someone decides to write it. You write your own life; don’t ever let anyone else use your pen.