Dot Org
Well, I have no idea what I want to do with my life.
I wasn’t worried about this until I met with a particular reader of my blog this weekend, and now I feel like if I don’t have everything sorted out by next week and don’t find a job that pays me at least $70,000 a year, I’ll be working beneath my potential and I’ll be screwed and I’ll be dependent entirely on Social Security when I get old, except that Social Security will be bankrupt by that point so I’ll wind up on the street living out of a refrigerator box with alcohol on my breath and muttering to people as they gingerly step around me and pretend not to see me as they chatter into whatever holographic telepathic telekinetic devices will have replaced cellphones by 2060.
Apparently my assignment is to go online and look for “foundations” that relate to computers and the Internet, which apparently is distinct from “non-profits.” Apparently through the use of the World Wide Web I’m supposed to be able to find 500 foundations to which I can send my resumé. I think I’ve found five. Anyway, I don’t even know if I want to work for a foundation, and I can’t really think straight because my new glasses are bothering me right now. I think they need to be tightened. Or they might be a tad too big for the bridge of my nose. They’re not as comfortable as my old glasses.
Anyway, if this stupid position I’ve been waiting and waiting to hear about doesn’t come through, I don’t know what I’m going to do once my current job ends on August 17. Maybe I’ll have to give up my apartment and move back in with my parents. And even if I do get this job, I now feel like it will be the wrong move, because it will only be paying me in the mid-40s and apparently I deserve to be making in the 70s. At least. Deserve? I don’t know whether I believe that.
I don’t deserve a salary in the mid-70s, because I don’t work hard enough. And I’m sure potential employers can see right through me anyway. I know that people look at my resumé and see how unimpressive it is, see right through my degree from a great law school and focus instead on the fact that I have skimpy job experience. And I’m never enthusiastic about any particular job prospect, because I’m scared and I can find things wrong with any potential job, and this lack of enthusiasm comes through, too.
I know that this isn’t totally true. In some ways I probably do deserve to be making a salary at least in the 70s. In fact, it’s probably not a question of “deserving.” It’s probably a question of what I’m capable of doing, and I’m in fact a smart guy.
Yeah, my self-esteem could kinda be higher.
Cripes, I’ll get through this, I guess.
Doh! And you were doing so well for a little while there.
I hereby call for a brief moratorium on anyone saying anything that might discourage the Tin Man just when he’s hitting the groove of a good mood. All this one-step-forward-two-steps-back business is counterproductive.
But the six-inches-forward five-inches-back can be kinda fun!
If you’re not Hedwig.
C’mon, buddy. If you go around telling yourself that you don’t deserve things, that pessimistic attitude will take over your life.
As kooky and new-agey as the whole concept of Karma sounds, I’ve found it to be a pretty good system to work with. Only put out the thoughts and energy that you want, and it’ll come back to you. If you’re putting out dark and unconfident vibes, well, expect the high-powered sewer system of life to suck away everything that you always thought you wanted.
(sorry, TM, you’re probably never going to live down that incident!! hee hee!)
Hey! You’re totally on to something here! You totally don’t want this job you’re waiting for. And you don’t sound interested in working for some foundation whose mission you’re not involved in.
What’s actually DO you want to do? You’re SO CLOSE! And here’s my only advice: don’t try and choose what you want to do with the REST of your life. What do you wanna do right now? Because jobs can come and go. This isn’t 1954.
Honey you’re so totally almost there. The denial (self-denial and otherwise) is on the edge of abatement.
And you know how to work hard, at things you’re interested in working hard at.