La Redécouverte

I think it’s time for a little commentary of the thing that’s been plaguing me (and others) since the middle of high school…

Life direction.

Admittedly, it’s kept quiet for most of this year and has only come up again recently in a couple of ways. The burning desire (or insight) for finding my one and true purpose has yet to ignite for me. The future is not easy to deal with. I doubt it is for anyone.

The big thing here for me is education. After high school, I struggled but chose something. It was close but not right on. If I would have finished that diploma, I’d still have a job now but it wouldn’t be one I liked. Could I have done the job? Of course. But I think life’s too short to do something “just because you can.” I wouldn’t say I’m good at math, but I can learn patterns and formulas easily and memorize well. Could I be an accountant? With some work I bet I could. Would I like it? I can confidently say no.

Still, with almost all my peers ready to graduate and receive degrees, it makes me wish I’d just chosen something I could have liked at the university and stuck with it. But that comes with other worries. Taking a degree and realizing you don’t like any of the jobs you can do with it is seriously scary stuff. It’s what I was realizing at SAIT, and it quite literally scared me off. As a kid I never thought I’d be the kind of person to only do half of post-secondary and then stop. But I just felt so lost. The thought of burning away one year and two semesters’ tuition was too much. Too high a cost for a piece of paper saying I was qualified to do a job I’d hate. I feel less lost now than I did at SAIT, even though I’m not much further ahead, technically speaking. I might have taken the road less traveled but so far it’s kind feeling like I made the wrong decision. Maybe I’m not reaching my full potential.

There’s pressure from several directions to pick something else and go back to school, but it feels wrong to go back just for the sake of going back. It’s not that I’m lazy and it’s not that I don’t want to. I loved school, I was good at it. And I got all stat holidays off! But seriously, without an end goal in mind, university could be a grievous waste of money.

The first “problem” is that I like my job… I really value it, as has become evident along these past months. A job reflects who you are and what you can do. When I told people I worked at the zoo, they seemed to immediately think it was a good job I was happy in, until I proceeded to tell them that I worked in the café at the zoo, flipping burgers. Suddenly, they spoke of the job to me as if it was a temporal thing, a stepping stone to something bigger. (Which it was, and they were totally justified in speaking of it like that.) They’d say things like, ‘Well, you have to save up for school somehow, hey?’ That’s the kind of reaction minimum wage fast food jobs get. Now, when people ask what I do, the general impression I get is that they’re kind of impressed. “I make graphics and edit course content for an eLearning company” sounds good. And it is good. I do other things, many other things, for the eLearning company, but I’ve learned to keep it simple. The most important thing is that after I say it, people never, ever say anything like, ‘Hang in there, September is right around the bend, and then you can quit and focus on school again!’ It’s like they get the impression that I’m already on the path towards the end goal, and maybe I am.

The second “problem” is that I’m not very ambitious career-wise. (As far as setting long-term goals are concerned. I try to go the extra mile in the things I do day by day. But vague goals like ‘try my best all the time’ aren’t held in high esteem by truly ambitious people.) I know it’s infuriating to others. People who are good at setting goals and have a clear picture of what they want their future to look like can’t understand this about me at all. And you know, I’m sure the relative lack of confidence I have in myself is partly to blame for me being a horrible goal-maker. Sure I’m afraid of failure. Who isn’t? Still, I don’t feel like I’m holding back professionally. Sometimes people push me forward into more responsibility, which I resist because I resist all change, and then accept because I trust others are watching out for me. So far, it’s working out.

I think it’s uncommon for a person like me to change anything arbitrarily. I’m a creature of habit and I like it when my life is routine and predictable. Some people go crazy in cases like this. For me, it creates stability. Stability creates happiness. And I am happy, very happy right now. Have you ever heard a 21 year old say ‘I am pretty much completely happy and satisfied in my job’? Yes, you have.

Changing things would require great vision. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, I’m saying it would have to be clear. Because when you do a 4-year degree, you should have some idea of a profession you want after you finish it. I can’t think of a job I’d want more than mine right now, and that’s not meant to be sentimental. It’s just that I can’t imagine myself doing something that didn’t involve words or art, and my job involves both right now, even if sometimes in a way that reigns in the creativity at times. Let’s face it, if you want to be a creative artist and be paid for it, you have to be bloody good.

I have no real conclusion to this life direction meandering. I’m either going to have a blinding epiphany one day or I’m going to work steadily up the ladder I’m on now. Either way, I just hope I’ll always have the support I do now.