mid-life crisis

I've been thinking about this guy a lot today.

Not because he's handsome or inspiring -- I only have enough room for one handsome, inspiring boyfriend in my life -- but because what he's doing is radical. He's traveling around North America doing a different job every week for a year. He's a hippie -- he's sleeping on people's couches and he has dreadlocks. He somehow doesn't need money -- he's doing all these jobs and receiving no pay, the companies are only making a suggested donation to a charity. He's a really a fictional character in a sense, an online personae, yet his mission is very real: to find a job that he loves.

Isn't this what we all want to do with our lives? Work at a job we love and consequently never work a day in our lives? This is why we go to college, major in what interests US not what interests our parents, this is why we head into our adult lives hopeful and starry-eyed. But how many people actually have the luxury of finding and doing what they love? I, for one, feel stuck. I need to pay the bills (not to mention that I need something else to put on my resume), so I need to stay where I am. It's not ideal, it's not my dream job, but it's something. There are so many jobs in this world, but the vast majority are closed, meaning unless you have the experience and the skills, you can't hope to get the job. For now, I'm a journalist. I'm not even the journalist I think I'd like to be, but I'm doing what I'm doing, blindly following the career path in my head that may or may not actually work with my life. Maybe I don't want to commit the hours to my chosen profession. What then? And what about those who are stuck somewhere less strategic? Like a temp job or a secretarial job; something they couldn't do forever? What do they do?

I've always thought I might like book publishing or advertising or editing or even public relations: I know how to edit and read and deal with people, but without real experience, I can't even hope to break into these fields. My perfect job could be waiting somewhere I will never get to because I chose to focus on newspaper internships and jobs in college, not get experience in every possible job I think I might like to work someday. I also had to pick a major, and in order to ease my mind of the gravity of my decision when I was a senior in high school and a freshman and sophomore in college, I told myself that it didn't really matter what I picked as long as I liked it. But it did in a sense because majors automatically close a lot of doors. I've also been thinking that maybe I should have become an architect. In order to break into that field I would need to become a student again, study for years, go into major debt, and again, send out my resume in hopes that someone, anyone, will hire me. Or maybe I should become a cook: go to culinary school and join my sisters in Santa Fe, New Mexico for the grand opening of our new restaurant Lindsey'S Peach. Or was it Linsapa's (pronounced: Linseppe's)?

So here I am, my peers beside me. We're motivated, smart, and we have college degrees: but all we see when we look at our options for now and in the future are closed doors. Sean Aiken (the man that prompted my rant today) is 36 weeks into his adventure, and nothing really has struck a chord with him besides his job in advertising or raising funds for cancer research: perhaps not entirely related to his degree in business administration. Of course, he could write a book now, become a travel book writer, start a T-shirt company, or whatever because people know his name, but even the man who has "tried every job" can't identify definitively the one he loves. Come to think of it, I know very few people who like their jobs without a "but"... maybe Juli and maybe my uncle. Maybe it depends on the type of person you are. Would I have said even last year that I liked my job at the Daily Nexus, when now I look back with such longing?

My argument is unraveling at the seams. I could go back to school and become an architect, I could even go back to school and become a doctor, or a teacher, or anything I wanted. I, like most of my peers with college degrees, have that luxury. I realize not everyone does. I think my problem right now is just deciding one way or the other, and at some point giving up on everything else. I don't have to do that yet, but I just hope that when the time comes I feel like I have landed somewhere worthwhile.