Sleep Then Work, Sleep Then Work

The title of this article was my 22-year-old, recent college graduate, cousin’s latest Facebook status. As instantly as I read it my heart leapt with sarcastic nostalgia. When I first graduated I found the idea of a 40-hr work week daunting and ridiculous. If I was going to spend my best years locked away in an old building, sucking up, and doing nothing close to anything I liked…why had I gone to college? Why did I give an already well-endowed university thousands of dollars I didn’t have, and now have to pay back?

I could’ve just gotten a job right out of high-school and use those four-years that I gave a college, to become skill/task oriented and suck up. I could’ve climbed the ranks and then if I saw an opportunity I really wanted and it required a degree…I could’ve went to college with my job paying for it. All the while, I’d been building my reputation and earning money. Fact, I know from seeing: Most college graduates, of my era, volunteer (aka, intern) or are under-paid quite a few years, working in a capacity unrelated to their degree. So what’s the benefit college graduates have over high-school graduates? Yeah, we can say we know more…but are we less stressed? Happier? More financially stable?

Needless to say, unhappy with my options, I quickly went back to school. I even contemplated being a career-student; however that was short-lived: 1.) My family would’ve killed me. 2.) Loans had began paying for my education 3.) It didn’t feel any more satisfying, it would’ve just temporarily lessened the shame of not having a career. What did going back for a Master’s degree do for me? It showed me a career I could stomach crawling toward, “Author & Professor.” It also helped me realize it was (pride and) fear that caused me to revile my mother’s suggestion, “Take a Civil Service exam. You could work for Social Security?” Did she know I didn’t need a college degree to do that? Yes. Did she know people started those jobs and made a lifetime of them? Yes. She talked about the pensions like they were a multi-million dollar lottery. Did she know those types of jobs corroded people away far faster than I wanted to be? Maybe.

No disrespect to anyone who works the kind of State job that frightens me, but I knew I couldn’t have handled that: 1.) I’m too comfortable solo. 2.) Too many sad or needlessly complicated stories makes me angry with everyone. So yes, I went back to college and graduated. But, surprisingly this time, I took a job paying less than $10/hr, no paid lunch, 40hrs a week. Why? I got to teach kids. As an undergrad, I was too busy being an undergrad and just making sure I maintain respectable grades, to actually consider if I liked my major. Or whether, if my major would actually lead to a career I could actually stomach, let alone, love. In graduate school however, I was so disgusted, confused and afraid that I was honest with my mentor and myself. I became a T.A., and I found myself being really open about my ‘Dirty-Little-Secret,’ my love of writing.

Who says desperate people don’t do desperate things? This is to say, I learned the hard way that when you’re doing to something you love it doesn’t feel like, “Work then Sleep…Work then Sleep…” But going after what you love takes boldness and sometimes boldness in quietly born from desperation. Now don’t get me wrong, I have NO INTENTION on continuing being paid less than $10/hr, with no paid lunch…even this 40hrs a week thing has to go! Last year my summer vanished before my eyes in this lifestyle and I LOVE the Summer. Some people would say what I expressed here is exactly what’s wrong with my generation. I think not. But in an economy like this-in a world like this, honestly-you have to be in love with what you’re doing and desperate for what you want to fight through all the malarkey.

If you need help uncovering your passion, please follow the Pathfinders link attached to this article.


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