“Why not live it up, take the risk, and do the thing you’re meant to do.”
The final quote in the movie 10mph, a documentary about a team of people who quit their jobs to ride a Segway across the United States.
I seem to be drawn to things like this lately, or maybe I just notice them more. I’m currently reading Thoreau’s Walden, a book he wrote while living on hiatus from society in a cabin he built himself next to a pond.
Now I’m not too sure I could build a cabin if I wanted to, and I am pretty sure I would injure myself trying to ride a Segway. But those were other people’s quests. I don’t know what mine is, or what it could be. That will sort itself out.
For now, I’m relishing the opportunity. After spending the last year completely wasting away in something that was completely unfulfilling and not only didn’t lead to personal growth, but rather regression, I quit. That period is done. Tomorrow I head to the beach for nine days with absolutely no commitments other than a few rounds of golf. The rest is just going to happen how it happens, where it happens and when it happens.
Sitting on my beach partner’s deck the other day eating grilled hot dogs, I said “I feel great about life right now. I’m unemployed and feel better than I have in a long long time.”
How often do you hear those things in the same sentence? That’s what happens when you get sidetracked by certain aspects of life and lose focus on the rest. I know exactly what I don’t want to do in life, and if it took a year of disappointment and frustration to better elucidate that in my head, I’m glad I went through that experience.
I’d like to think what I went to school for is what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s something I enjoy and something I think I’m pretty good at. But who knows. There’s an infinite world of possibilities out there, and after nine days of cleaning the slate, we’ll see what the next round of chalk has in store.
I’ve spent many hours talking with some of you about this experience. You’ve gone through the same thing, or are right behind me in the boat manning the oars. Nobody told us it could be this way right? It seemed like we got on the right path, went to school, did the unpaid internships and were supposed to be picked up into the system. But then came the special requirements about the experience we don’t have and that seemingly ubiquitous other candidate that they’re going to go with instead.
That’s fine. There’ll be another opportunity. The bills beckoned, so we changed the focus to a stop-gap. And that sucked.
At the same time, our friends got jobs before they left school or right after they got back from that great vacation. They found fulfilling work and loved their bosses. We kept trying.
At some point I started to see rejection as a sign of something else. It was like being in a video game and thinking I’d finished a level, only there was something I didn’t pick up or some button I still needed to press for the game to let me move on. I was at the building, circling it like a hawk looking for a meal, but just couldn’t find the damn door to get inside. I’d go to work and try to take a step back and see what lesson I could glean from a seemingly dead-end situation. What was I supposed to be learning before I got my chance? Who was I supposed to meet? What conversation was I supposed to have?
I’m not sure I ever had that moment or that lesson, or if it even exists. But in that process of stepping back I was able to see the ridiculousness of what I was doing. Life’s too short to hate what you’re doing. Unless of course that’s something quick and simple like eating lima beans. Eat your lima beans. But if it’s day after day, encounter after encounter that just makes you want to run from the building, lace up your shoes and get out.
I’m a fan of the band Barenaked Ladies, and on of the first cds I ever purchased they have a song called “Never is Enough.” The chorus goes, “I think never is enough yeah never is enough, I never want to do that stuff.” It talks about backpacking through Europe, working in retail, etc. I’ve heard the song a hundred times, and it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that one line really hit the essence of my situation: “You get your Ph.d, how happy you will be, when you get a job at Wendy’s and are honored with employee of the month.” (yes I quoted that a few days ago, sorry). Now I’m a step below Ph.d, but I like to think I was a step above Wendy’s so it all averages out. Oh and my company didn’t do employee of the month. I might have lost to one of the mannequins.
But when your situation is used as an argument in a song about the ridiculousness of what people are doing with their lives, it’s hard not to laugh at yourself and commit to the change you’ve been wanting.
So nine days of decompressing and pondering what lies ahead.
Maybe Thoreau will teach me how to build a cabin.