Searching for a New Professional Life
I’m 28, a majority of my friends are between 25 – 35. Pretty much all of us are college-educated, worldly, personable and dynamic. We’re talented, we’re attractive and yet a lot of us have something else in common; we’re not happy with our ‘professional lives’. I understand that that is not uncommon, there’s even a book “The Quarter-life Crisis” that puts a title to what we are feeling, but what’s at the heart of the issue? I can’t speak for us all, but I can speak for me…
I was always driven, focused and pushed the limits of what life offered. I spent my undergraduate career challenging the system, finding ways around the rules (which were simply there to make one into a clone of those who came before them) and won. I developed new study abroad programs, spent over two years and almost five semesters overseas, revived a dead major and met my goal “to speak four languages by the time I graduated” (which I still did in four years.) It didn’t end there, I moved to DC to explore graduate school options and found one that ‘fit’. During the two years I was at the School for International Service at American University, I studied International Communications taking an interest in cross-cultural communications and worked to find a way to use this within the US and the GLBT community. For the most part, I was happy, I was optimistic about my future, even though I was putting myself in some massive debt. In the two years since graduating, that has all changed.
I sit in an office (for the most part) from 9 – 5:30 (or there about), I work with a group of individuals that could care less about who I am, what I know or what I truly could contribute, I’m underpaid and undervalued. I started a job thinking I was going to be doing International Government Relations and have ended up in the world of auditing regulations, dealing with, but not interacting with, other countries and cultures. The drive that I once felt for life is not there; the excitement I used to feel while thinking about what the world has to offer is gone; in essence, who I defined myself as is disappearing.
Although I realize that it is not simple a job or money that will allow me to rediscover the inner me, I have to admit, it plays a huge part. The bottom-line is when what you do for eight hours of every day isn’t something you like or that fits you, it has an affect on your attitude.
Is this just life? Is it true what they say, “you aren’t meant to love what you do, that’s why it’s called ‘work’”? For my sake, I have to believe no, I have to believe that I, and my friends, won’t continue to wake-up every morning thinking “this is it?” I have to believe that the will behind the dreams that propelled me through my earlier life will thrust me into a more enjoyable future; one that uses my languages, the cross-cultural education and experiences that I love, and will have me waking up every morning shouting “YES! I get to do it again.”
I was always driven, focused and pushed the limits of what life offered. I spent my undergraduate career challenging the system, finding ways around the rules (which were simply there to make one into a clone of those who came before them) and won. I developed new study abroad programs, spent over two years and almost five semesters overseas, revived a dead major and met my goal “to speak four languages by the time I graduated” (which I still did in four years.) It didn’t end there, I moved to DC to explore graduate school options and found one that ‘fit’. During the two years I was at the School for International Service at American University, I studied International Communications taking an interest in cross-cultural communications and worked to find a way to use this within the US and the GLBT community. For the most part, I was happy, I was optimistic about my future, even though I was putting myself in some massive debt. In the two years since graduating, that has all changed.
I sit in an office (for the most part) from 9 – 5:30 (or there about), I work with a group of individuals that could care less about who I am, what I know or what I truly could contribute, I’m underpaid and undervalued. I started a job thinking I was going to be doing International Government Relations and have ended up in the world of auditing regulations, dealing with, but not interacting with, other countries and cultures. The drive that I once felt for life is not there; the excitement I used to feel while thinking about what the world has to offer is gone; in essence, who I defined myself as is disappearing.
Although I realize that it is not simple a job or money that will allow me to rediscover the inner me, I have to admit, it plays a huge part. The bottom-line is when what you do for eight hours of every day isn’t something you like or that fits you, it has an affect on your attitude.
Is this just life? Is it true what they say, “you aren’t meant to love what you do, that’s why it’s called ‘work’”? For my sake, I have to believe no, I have to believe that I, and my friends, won’t continue to wake-up every morning thinking “this is it?” I have to believe that the will behind the dreams that propelled me through my earlier life will thrust me into a more enjoyable future; one that uses my languages, the cross-cultural education and experiences that I love, and will have me waking up every morning shouting “YES! I get to do it again.”
posted by J @ 2:38 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
As someone who, ahem, falls outside of the normative age range you cite for your circle, I perhaps have a little perspective on this.
Although, for most people, the job satisfaction thing will be more or less what you describe, for some, alternatives are possible. You're ahead of the game, dramatically, simply because you know what you enjoy doing and you have interests and talents.
[Cf. Ferris Bueller and his girlfriend Sloan, on the subject of what to major in in college:
Ferris: "Well, what are you interested in?"
Sloan: "Nothin'."
Ferris: "Me neither."
This is the norm.]
It sure sounds like you need to seek a new job. No, it's not realistic to expect that you'll bound of of bed each morning, excited at the prospect of the new work day. Even during the best of times, I for one have never adjusted to "the grind." But I don't think it's unrealistic to expect that a third or more of your work time involves something engaging. And there should be periods of days or even weeks on end when almost everything is engaging, even exciting. It's not an impossible goal.
I've had 5 jobs since college graduation in 1989. Two of the switches were unrelated to my day-to-day satisfaction; they were taking advantage of new opportunities that presented themselves to me. For the other two, the telling sign was "the dreads" on Sundays. Once the dreads took hold, I looked for another job. Sounds like you're there now.
That being said, we have an East Coast perspective: live to work. On the West Coast you work to live. You have to decide what makes you happy. The correlation is often challenging rewarding career= no free time. If you want your life to be about non work things (whatever that might be- family, friends, secret artist desries, doing an ironman, etc), then working to live makes sense. And it can vary, you can go through phases of work and phases of 'life.' It does sound, however, that it is time for you to have a career phase. I, on the other hand, am on a life phase.
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