Questions loomed in my mind as I trekked to the office: What if I just didn’t show up today? Is the money worth this heartache? Should I take a risk and quit?
Here are the signs that I found that say it’s time to move on.
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There was a time about a two years ago when I found myself seated at a table surrounded by wine glasses filled with varying types of expensive wines, waiters fluttering to and from my table bringing course after course of exquisite food. And my primary emotion? Not delight, but disbelief. I felt like a fraud.
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I am always fighting this conundrum: If I am too busy, I get stressed out, and if I’m not busy enough… I get stressed out. What used to be a three-month issue during the summer now occurs on a weekly basis. I try to find ways to be more productive in my free time while constantly battling my desire to nap away my free hours. On the rare occasion when I stay awake, I have found a few ways to keep my mind occupied and my time productive.
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But March is only month 3 of 12, so I can’t let a lack of goal success over a two-month period dictate the rest of my year. I’d like to offer three things I’m learning about setting yourself up to meet your goals. (Plus I have a giveaway to announce!)
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Although I studied English, I don’t always have a way with words. The scariest question I get is the very first one I am asked on all interviews: Can you tell me about yourself? Although I have my elevator pitch down, I never feel fully satisfied with my answer. In the post-graduate world there is so much more to a person than high school grades and college majors. There is confusion, crying, laughing, drinking, and a lot of second-guessing.
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I don't know if I'm just really unique in this situation, but it seems like everyone knows exactly what they're doing with their lives. Except me. And I know that that's just what people say and what my generation thinks and that society just values traditional careers over non-traditional ones, but you know what? That's just kind of a bummer sometimes.
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Five months ago I accepted my first full-time job as a building substitute at my former middle school. Although I wasn’t given my own classroom, I was relieved to have a place to go every day and to practice, observe, and grow in the education field. The very first day during lunch duty, however, a co-worker smiled as I introduced myself and promptly asked, “So are you overwhelmed with all the applications you’re filling out?”
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I want you to know that being a legitimate artist and holding a day job are not mutually exclusive. You can do both. At the same time.
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It's Monday night. I'm gathering up all of the trash because tomorrow is garbage day. I feel like I just did this two days ago, but no, a whole week has gone by. A whole week of nothing exciting, nothing life-changing—nothing different at all.
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“What will you do next?”
I’ve been asked that question three times in the last week.
I’ve fielded this question before—we all have; the moment our graduation date appears on the year’s horizon, every family member, friend, and kind stranger who discovers you’re a near-graduating student presents this question to you. It’s been two years since I graduated college, and I still don’t have a good answer to this question, despite the younger me who thought 24 years-old meant your life trajectory was set firmly in place.
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I was taught that there are two types of people in the world: people who can never take a break, and people who never want to get to work. At my office, it was announced a few months ago that in 2017 we will instate an unlimited vacation time policy; half my coworkers cheered, the other half put together a strongly worded email to the CEO. Some of them hadn’t taken more than a day at a time off in years. Others used their vacation days up so quickly they had to plan each hour out to the T.
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One of the best parts about running That First Year is getting to read all of the stories y’all send to me and thinking “Wow, that gal or guy is one helluva writer!” I’m forever grateful to be given this opportunity to take care of this space, creating community through stories shared of That First Year after college and beyond.
Below is a list of 10 posts that received the most reads this year. Give these posts a read as we bring this year to a close.
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I felt warm tears rise in the back of my eyelids when I knew where the conversation was going. Was I wanting to cry? Was I really sad? Oh, hell no! This was about to be really exciting news!
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This weekend, That First Year celebrates two years of existence, which also means I’ve now been out of college for two years. I feel like I should have some sort of grasp on this “adulthood” thing, but despite what idealistic-dreamy-girl-college-me thought, I still have no real idea of what I’m doing with my life. They don’t really tell you in college that you never actually “figure life out,” do they? Turns out life isn’t a problem to be solved or a puzzle to be figured out after all, it’s just a string of days—good ones and bad ones and meh ones—to be lived in wild abundance. These two years have definitely been a lesson in this.
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Refreshing my inbox won’t make an awaited email appear any faster. I know this. Of course I know this. But that certainly doesn’t stop me from clicking that little circular arrow every thirty seconds. Waiting for good news—in this case, a coveted job offer—is excruciating, and if constantly reloading my Gmail makes it marginally more tolerable, then I will continue refreshing all day long.
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