Day Sixty Three: Waiting

I'm am comfortable waiting for the right path.

Recently I had breakfast with a few old college professors. They were grad students when they taught me in undergrad. All of them have now received their master's degrees in various useless forms of English. Of the three of them, one of them has a job in an actual field. She's an adjunct professor at a school in Boulder right now. She told me she barely makes enough for rent.

One of these professors works at a coffee shop. He and I takes a little about what it feels like to have a master's degree and still be working for minimum wage. He told me this: "As much as I want to jump into a career right now, you have to be comfortable waiting for the right path. I've known too many people who took the first job offered to them when they left college and always regretted it."

At this point, I think I would take any job offered to me that gets me out of this stupid ice cream shop. I told him this and he said "that's because you're sick of ice cream, not because you're necessarily ready for your career. The only career you really needed to work on right now was your writing career.”

Can’t argue with that. But they’re right. I know a lot of people who are in careers or beginning careers they don’t want. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not using this waiting thing as an excuse as to why I don’t have a real job yet. I know exactly what I want to do with my life. Unfortunately the position of Editor in Chief of Cosmo is taken and the education sphere doesn’t deem creative writhing significant enough to let me teach six periods of writing. But I’ve started to realize that working as a cake decorator and caterer isn’t as bad as it could be and I am at least somewhat happy right now.

When I find my dream job, I will get it. And until then, I get to make people happy for nine bucks an hour.

Challenge to my Readers:

Examine your career or career goals today. Even if you are sure that you love the field you’re in or that you will love the field you one day hope to go into, examine it anyway.  Ask yourself if there is room for floating, for balancing between career and life. Ask if it really makes you happy.