Is this all there is?
I've written a few emails out to some of my mentors with questions about my career & life. This is what is happening in my life right now, these are my thoughts. I've taken names out but well, I bet most of you can figure it all out.
Hi R,
I wanted to write you because well i'm in an intersting space in my life & I have a lot of questions regarding my career.
The big question is happiness at place of in place of employment. Is it a fallacy that is for the youthful, or are most people happy or in love with what they are doing?
I know I love education & teaching in non-traditional environments. I learned that I loved teaching educational leadership to junior high kids when I traveled with a conference company. I know I loved student affairs & the work I did at USF.
My job that I have now, that i'm hoping to grow into is in distance education. (which I do love) But I'm not working with students and I'm not teaching. I'm just taking corrections the help desk makes and fixing them in the master version of the course shell. Most of the time I just sit at a desk waiting for some task to come in. In the interview they made it out to be a needed & hectic position. (something i'm suited for) and now I spend most of my day reading online blogs, all with my supervisors permission.
At USF Dr. M always told us not to jump at the first job and to really see if the job was a good fit. In this economy I couldn't afford to not jump at a job offer. Yet now, after a month & a half I find myself stir crazy. I also find myself back in a mentality of being in my hometown area for the past 4 years and I always fought to get out of here and I've got that urge again.
I guess I'm just unsure of being settled. being stagnet. and being stuck in my hometown. I know I can be great and I know I can have an impact still. I just don't know if it's my wishful dreaming to be at a job that gives me the feeling of having an impact. Or if I just need to realize that this is it. I know i've got good friends, outside interests, and family but something just doesn't feel right this time. Like if I live & work in Saratoga I will be isolated from the rest of adventures I dreamed of. I know that sounds silly, I just don't know how to word it all.
I could be bored at this job and earn money for it. I could settle in this area and I know I'd always wonder if I could have been something more. I've always heard people tell me they knew when it was right. When life, career, and love just felt right in the right place. But I find myself questioning if this is what I dreamed being happy & content would be.
Any thoughts, words of wisdom, or tough love is truly appreciated.
-Hollie
************
Hey Hollie-
I'm sorry it has taken me a few days to respond. Life at COLLEGE NAME is crazy and I just can't seem to get ahead (still working at 9:46pm - ugh!).
I'm honored you emailed and thought to seek my advice. It means a lot! That said, now on to your questions.
WOW-what an email. Lots to digest and lots of questions to ask. Here I go. - keep in mind it is really late for me so spelling and complete sentence might not happen! :)
First, you can certainly find a job that you LOVE and where the impact on students is felt most day (maybe not every day, but most days). I love what I do but there are those days when I really HATE my job and the struggles that come with it. For me, as long as there are more days where I love my job over hating it and I can see the impact I have on students, than I'm golden. You wont love every aspect of your job, but you need to love more aspects of it than hate. When the bad outweighs the good, it will be time for me to look for something new. What you have to ask yourself is, is it important to you for you to LOVE your job no matter what. Is that something you value in life and if it is, than you need to start looking to find a new position that reminds you why you love what you do.
However, taking a job so you can pay bills might be what you need the most right now. That said, you need to make the most of it. Or you need to focus on the other aspects of your life that make you happy (friends, family, social life, etc). If you can't leave your job until you find a new one than you have to remind yourself what you love about life until you can change jobs. Remember to focus on the positive aspects of your life. I know the glass half full concept is not easy (especially when things seem out of sort) but being positive can make a huge difference.
Hollie-we all wonder if there is meant to be something more in our life. If we didn't wonder than we would never move forward (or grow for that matter). (husband) is hesitant to have kids. I want a child more than I can say but it might not be in my future. Do I love the idea that I could grow old and never be a parent - no but it might be the path my life takes. I can either be upset or I can accept it and move on the the stuff I can change. Life is about choices, and sometimes we have to make hard, uncomfortable choices. It sucks but we wouldn't grow as people if we weren't challenged by life (see how I fit student development theory into our conversation!)
What I can't tell from your email is if you dislike your job or your hometown or is it both? We need to dig one level deeper to really get at what is bothering you. Ponder what you dislike the most (what makes you the least happy) and get back to me. Let's continue this conversation. One email is certainly not enough to process how you feel and develop actions steps to get you to the place you want to be.
I look forward to your response!
R
******
It is a little of both. I mean they both leak into each other.
So I came back to the capital district of NY after a series of panic attacks occurred at my Virginia based job with an educational conference company. The job I took at Albany Med (and kept for 3 years) was a job that I loved but had many moments that I hated. The stress of the job and no ability to move upward caused me to choose to leave the job. I was doing a national job search trying to be a coordinator of another program.
I was finishing a second masters in Educational Technology and I was looking for academic affairs positions. Then a car accident, broken collar bone, and PTSD had me out of the job search world for six months. I had to move home with my parents.
I finished up school, and got myself back on track filling in life with things I love (I got well know for my acting & singing, I even did a regional show & got paid!) I loved working in theater, I thought I would be happy if I did theater and had a day job that ended at 4 or 5 so I could keep doing shows. There are several colleges & major distance education schools here, so I applied for anything. I felt kind of ok with staying in the Capital District.
I got the job here at ESC and for the first few weeks they kept telling me the job would pick up. I kept finding trainings online that I could take. The next two weeks they said again, things should pick up soon.
I started to feel bad getting paid for reading stories on the internet, writing my blog at work. I started to get stressed out because I felt like I was wasting my time, I was bored constantly, I wasn’t challenged, I wasn’t busy. So I talked to my supervisor, I asked for more work. He said he would open the flood gates. He did, and no work came in.
I fished for small projects I could work on, I was approached about a research project on open universities, I got excited. Then, I was told that per politics too many people would be offended if I was asked to work on the project. I mean, I get it but I’m literally sitting with nothing to do at work, or praying that something breaks in a course that I can work on. Next week marks 2 months and well I haven’t done a thing except one course fix this week.
I used to live in Saratoga (where I now work) so many of my friends here keep asking when I plan on moving back up to Saratoga. I answer saying I don’t know where I want to live. I don’t want to be in Schenectady (at my parents), I don’t really want to live in Albany (30 mins west of Schenectady & 30 minutes south of Saratoga), and if I live in Saratoga & work in Saratoga I know I’ll eventually become polarized in Saratoga. When I think that, I get scared. It was never my goal or dream to live in this area the rest of my life.
A very lovely woman (L) had come into my life through area theater shows. We started out as friends, and then everyone saw us grow closer. We went out on dates and we were ok in that world for a bit, now we are back as friends but I still consider her in high regards) In our getting to know you questions she asked about where I’ve lived, what jobs I’ve done. I started to talk about the jobs I loved. I started talking about what I loved doing.
Another evening she asked me about my current job and if I was going to keep it. I hesitated, sighed, and then she looked at me. I knew the answer; I just had to admit the answer. So I let out a “no”, that I know what I want to get from this job - which is a paycheck, benefits, and the ability to teach an online course to get that on my resume.
At the same time, in the NY State workers system a group of people won the mega millions and what would someone do if they had 19.1 million dollars, like what would you do for work if money wasn’t a factor? I actually thought about it. I would do diversity training. I would work a program called “Be The Change” (very similar to NCBI). I would want to train younger people about educational leadership & diversity.
That’s what I did with orientation. I love orientation & program planning. I sat through ESC’s new employee orientation yesterday and knew all my programming critiques. I thought about why I left orientation. 1. Purdue fired me & PD thought I wasn’t good. Both were high up in NODA, so I was convinced my reputation was destroyed 2. Later, I never applied to other schools because I thought I wasn’t young enough to keep up with the hours.
It isn’t until now that I realize that just because PD fired me doesn’t mean I am not good at orientation. I was young, just diagnosed with anxiety disorder, I was in the middle of Indiana, working with all women, didn’t know how to make friends outside of work and the only gar bar in town just closed. I wasn’t a good fit at Purdue for what they needed and what I needed.
The second factor - of me not thinking I could keep up, I realize how crazy that is. If I can learn lines, sing, dance and memorize it all in 4 weeks and perform 18 shows in a weeks time - well I think I can still manage keeping up with the hours of an orientation worker.
So I (started to type think) but I know I want to try again. I love orientation and I keep thinking about USF & my grad cohort and how I’ve had quite a different journey from my classmates. I when I was with them all I never thought I could be as successful as they all dreamed of being. Now, through my experiences and my different journey, I know that I can be amazing. Now that I know it, I am unsure why I am timid about just setting out and doing it.
I question if my want to leave NY is from the fact that L is leaving for California in August to pursue her dream of working on a soundstage. (as California, Florida, Atlanta, Minnesota, and NYC are my search areas) I question if my job will get better when a new director is found for my area (they’ve done 2 searches with no results and no new search pending). I know that student affairs job searches take forever, so I figure on applying for jobs in orientation, program coordination, or educational leadership. I figure on holding out 6 months to take a temperature gauge on how I feel about this ESC job.
I also think about what if I could find an orientation job here in Albany or Saratoga. Would I take it? I don’t know if I would. I feel like a child here no matter what steps I take. I know right now this is compacted by still having to live with my family. I take the steps to go out on week nights, go do things I want to, not check in with my family or at least let them know when they are being nosey.
When I see my life, what I hope for. I see a city environment. I see a good group of friends. I see Community Theater. I see a loving partner. I see an actual campus with my diplomas on the wall of my office. I see people in my field knowing who I am because of what I do. My job gives me a sense of honor and pride in who I am. Right now that is missing. I have good friends here and I have theater here, so I question if I should just settle.
Yet I have hope that there is more to my life than what I have right now. Because a lack luster job, a polarized living environment, and the same dating pool of women that don’t understand my gender expression (of dapper dan clothing choices, with a goofball girl inside) just aren’t enough. It might sound weird (and I don’t know if it’s right) but I believe I’m bigger than all of what I have right now.
So how’s that for part two of our conversation?
Also, of course I hold you in high regards. our relationship was one of the biggest learning lessons in my life. I admire & respect the work you do and honestly if I can have the impact that you’ve made on me to others in our field, I’d feel pretty damn successful.
Sending fond thoughts,
-Hollie
SO after reading it friends, do you have any thoughts?
Hi R,
I wanted to write you because well i'm in an intersting space in my life & I have a lot of questions regarding my career.
The big question is happiness at place of in place of employment. Is it a fallacy that is for the youthful, or are most people happy or in love with what they are doing?
I know I love education & teaching in non-traditional environments. I learned that I loved teaching educational leadership to junior high kids when I traveled with a conference company. I know I loved student affairs & the work I did at USF.
My job that I have now, that i'm hoping to grow into is in distance education. (which I do love) But I'm not working with students and I'm not teaching. I'm just taking corrections the help desk makes and fixing them in the master version of the course shell. Most of the time I just sit at a desk waiting for some task to come in. In the interview they made it out to be a needed & hectic position. (something i'm suited for) and now I spend most of my day reading online blogs, all with my supervisors permission.
At USF Dr. M always told us not to jump at the first job and to really see if the job was a good fit. In this economy I couldn't afford to not jump at a job offer. Yet now, after a month & a half I find myself stir crazy. I also find myself back in a mentality of being in my hometown area for the past 4 years and I always fought to get out of here and I've got that urge again.
I guess I'm just unsure of being settled. being stagnet. and being stuck in my hometown. I know I can be great and I know I can have an impact still. I just don't know if it's my wishful dreaming to be at a job that gives me the feeling of having an impact. Or if I just need to realize that this is it. I know i've got good friends, outside interests, and family but something just doesn't feel right this time. Like if I live & work in Saratoga I will be isolated from the rest of adventures I dreamed of. I know that sounds silly, I just don't know how to word it all.
I could be bored at this job and earn money for it. I could settle in this area and I know I'd always wonder if I could have been something more. I've always heard people tell me they knew when it was right. When life, career, and love just felt right in the right place. But I find myself questioning if this is what I dreamed being happy & content would be.
Any thoughts, words of wisdom, or tough love is truly appreciated.
-Hollie
************
Hey Hollie-
I'm sorry it has taken me a few days to respond. Life at COLLEGE NAME is crazy and I just can't seem to get ahead (still working at 9:46pm - ugh!).
I'm honored you emailed and thought to seek my advice. It means a lot! That said, now on to your questions.
WOW-what an email. Lots to digest and lots of questions to ask. Here I go. - keep in mind it is really late for me so spelling and complete sentence might not happen! :)
First, you can certainly find a job that you LOVE and where the impact on students is felt most day (maybe not every day, but most days). I love what I do but there are those days when I really HATE my job and the struggles that come with it. For me, as long as there are more days where I love my job over hating it and I can see the impact I have on students, than I'm golden. You wont love every aspect of your job, but you need to love more aspects of it than hate. When the bad outweighs the good, it will be time for me to look for something new. What you have to ask yourself is, is it important to you for you to LOVE your job no matter what. Is that something you value in life and if it is, than you need to start looking to find a new position that reminds you why you love what you do.
However, taking a job so you can pay bills might be what you need the most right now. That said, you need to make the most of it. Or you need to focus on the other aspects of your life that make you happy (friends, family, social life, etc). If you can't leave your job until you find a new one than you have to remind yourself what you love about life until you can change jobs. Remember to focus on the positive aspects of your life. I know the glass half full concept is not easy (especially when things seem out of sort) but being positive can make a huge difference.
Hollie-we all wonder if there is meant to be something more in our life. If we didn't wonder than we would never move forward (or grow for that matter). (husband) is hesitant to have kids. I want a child more than I can say but it might not be in my future. Do I love the idea that I could grow old and never be a parent - no but it might be the path my life takes. I can either be upset or I can accept it and move on the the stuff I can change. Life is about choices, and sometimes we have to make hard, uncomfortable choices. It sucks but we wouldn't grow as people if we weren't challenged by life (see how I fit student development theory into our conversation!)
What I can't tell from your email is if you dislike your job or your hometown or is it both? We need to dig one level deeper to really get at what is bothering you. Ponder what you dislike the most (what makes you the least happy) and get back to me. Let's continue this conversation. One email is certainly not enough to process how you feel and develop actions steps to get you to the place you want to be.
I look forward to your response!
R
******
It is a little of both. I mean they both leak into each other.
So I came back to the capital district of NY after a series of panic attacks occurred at my Virginia based job with an educational conference company. The job I took at Albany Med (and kept for 3 years) was a job that I loved but had many moments that I hated. The stress of the job and no ability to move upward caused me to choose to leave the job. I was doing a national job search trying to be a coordinator of another program.
I was finishing a second masters in Educational Technology and I was looking for academic affairs positions. Then a car accident, broken collar bone, and PTSD had me out of the job search world for six months. I had to move home with my parents.
I finished up school, and got myself back on track filling in life with things I love (I got well know for my acting & singing, I even did a regional show & got paid!) I loved working in theater, I thought I would be happy if I did theater and had a day job that ended at 4 or 5 so I could keep doing shows. There are several colleges & major distance education schools here, so I applied for anything. I felt kind of ok with staying in the Capital District.
I got the job here at ESC and for the first few weeks they kept telling me the job would pick up. I kept finding trainings online that I could take. The next two weeks they said again, things should pick up soon.
I started to feel bad getting paid for reading stories on the internet, writing my blog at work. I started to get stressed out because I felt like I was wasting my time, I was bored constantly, I wasn’t challenged, I wasn’t busy. So I talked to my supervisor, I asked for more work. He said he would open the flood gates. He did, and no work came in.
I fished for small projects I could work on, I was approached about a research project on open universities, I got excited. Then, I was told that per politics too many people would be offended if I was asked to work on the project. I mean, I get it but I’m literally sitting with nothing to do at work, or praying that something breaks in a course that I can work on. Next week marks 2 months and well I haven’t done a thing except one course fix this week.
I used to live in Saratoga (where I now work) so many of my friends here keep asking when I plan on moving back up to Saratoga. I answer saying I don’t know where I want to live. I don’t want to be in Schenectady (at my parents), I don’t really want to live in Albany (30 mins west of Schenectady & 30 minutes south of Saratoga), and if I live in Saratoga & work in Saratoga I know I’ll eventually become polarized in Saratoga. When I think that, I get scared. It was never my goal or dream to live in this area the rest of my life.
A very lovely woman (L) had come into my life through area theater shows. We started out as friends, and then everyone saw us grow closer. We went out on dates and we were ok in that world for a bit, now we are back as friends but I still consider her in high regards) In our getting to know you questions she asked about where I’ve lived, what jobs I’ve done. I started to talk about the jobs I loved. I started talking about what I loved doing.
Another evening she asked me about my current job and if I was going to keep it. I hesitated, sighed, and then she looked at me. I knew the answer; I just had to admit the answer. So I let out a “no”, that I know what I want to get from this job - which is a paycheck, benefits, and the ability to teach an online course to get that on my resume.
At the same time, in the NY State workers system a group of people won the mega millions and what would someone do if they had 19.1 million dollars, like what would you do for work if money wasn’t a factor? I actually thought about it. I would do diversity training. I would work a program called “Be The Change” (very similar to NCBI). I would want to train younger people about educational leadership & diversity.
That’s what I did with orientation. I love orientation & program planning. I sat through ESC’s new employee orientation yesterday and knew all my programming critiques. I thought about why I left orientation. 1. Purdue fired me & PD thought I wasn’t good. Both were high up in NODA, so I was convinced my reputation was destroyed 2. Later, I never applied to other schools because I thought I wasn’t young enough to keep up with the hours.
It isn’t until now that I realize that just because PD fired me doesn’t mean I am not good at orientation. I was young, just diagnosed with anxiety disorder, I was in the middle of Indiana, working with all women, didn’t know how to make friends outside of work and the only gar bar in town just closed. I wasn’t a good fit at Purdue for what they needed and what I needed.
The second factor - of me not thinking I could keep up, I realize how crazy that is. If I can learn lines, sing, dance and memorize it all in 4 weeks and perform 18 shows in a weeks time - well I think I can still manage keeping up with the hours of an orientation worker.
So I (started to type think) but I know I want to try again. I love orientation and I keep thinking about USF & my grad cohort and how I’ve had quite a different journey from my classmates. I when I was with them all I never thought I could be as successful as they all dreamed of being. Now, through my experiences and my different journey, I know that I can be amazing. Now that I know it, I am unsure why I am timid about just setting out and doing it.
I question if my want to leave NY is from the fact that L is leaving for California in August to pursue her dream of working on a soundstage. (as California, Florida, Atlanta, Minnesota, and NYC are my search areas) I question if my job will get better when a new director is found for my area (they’ve done 2 searches with no results and no new search pending). I know that student affairs job searches take forever, so I figure on applying for jobs in orientation, program coordination, or educational leadership. I figure on holding out 6 months to take a temperature gauge on how I feel about this ESC job.
I also think about what if I could find an orientation job here in Albany or Saratoga. Would I take it? I don’t know if I would. I feel like a child here no matter what steps I take. I know right now this is compacted by still having to live with my family. I take the steps to go out on week nights, go do things I want to, not check in with my family or at least let them know when they are being nosey.
When I see my life, what I hope for. I see a city environment. I see a good group of friends. I see Community Theater. I see a loving partner. I see an actual campus with my diplomas on the wall of my office. I see people in my field knowing who I am because of what I do. My job gives me a sense of honor and pride in who I am. Right now that is missing. I have good friends here and I have theater here, so I question if I should just settle.
Yet I have hope that there is more to my life than what I have right now. Because a lack luster job, a polarized living environment, and the same dating pool of women that don’t understand my gender expression (of dapper dan clothing choices, with a goofball girl inside) just aren’t enough. It might sound weird (and I don’t know if it’s right) but I believe I’m bigger than all of what I have right now.
So how’s that for part two of our conversation?
Also, of course I hold you in high regards. our relationship was one of the biggest learning lessons in my life. I admire & respect the work you do and honestly if I can have the impact that you’ve made on me to others in our field, I’d feel pretty damn successful.
Sending fond thoughts,
-Hollie
SO after reading it friends, do you have any thoughts?