The most writing i've done in a heinous length of time.
I just read this article about "Ten things college graduates need to know about finances and careers" while at work (someone needs to teach me how to stop procrastinating). But the tenth item really hit me-- I feel like it's exactly what I needed to hear right now, as I unenthusiastically gear up to start my news editor job at my tiny, rough-around-the-edges local paper.
10. You have an incredibly long life ahead of you. Use that knowledge to your advantage.
If you’re just starting your first post-college job, it’s likely that you’re in your early 20s or your mid 20s. A person of that age right now will live on average well into their 80s. You will probably be working productively fifty years from now. Fifty years.
Spending two years of your career working at a startup is a blip in the big scheme of things. Taking three years to work for the Peace Corps? Another blip. Taking on risks and adventures like these do not have the same risk for someone who has fifty years of career ahead of them versus someone who is looking at retirement shortly.
Take those risks now when you’re young and single and unencumbered with debts and other obligations. This is what it means to keep your doors open. There’s a long hallway ahead of you with a lot of doors in it. You have plenty of time to look through a lot of those doors, and you should. At the same time, you should be trying to stay out of debt and give your future self skills so that you can see what’s behind as many doors as you can.
After all, you’ve got half a century to explore.
I know I am so, so lucky to have a job lined up--much less a job in my field-- but it doesn't stop me from feeling seriously anti-climatic out of college. I never wanted to plunk back down in Varysburg once I graduated, and I mean never. Yet here I am, same bedroom, same dependence on my parents, same feeling of "this cannot be all there is" that I had in high school.
I know this is ridiculous. I know it's self-indulgent and petty, because hey, I have a job. I'm lucky enough to have wonderful, caring parents who are 100% glad to have me back for as long as I need to be there, and with whom I get along freakishly well. I'm going to be learning the ropes in my field, being there for my younger siblings as they finish off high school, paying off loans and helping out my mom and dad whenever they need it. I have Dave, just an hour or so away, to provide his wonderful, rare combination of sweetness and practicality that makes me feel better, usually in the form of a reminder that things always work out (infuriating from anyone but him) and a gentle remonstration that just because I'm not where I want to be doesn't mean I won't get there eventually, and likewise, that my ever-present plan for my future isn't failing just because its changing. I have dear friends (even if they are scattered, now), and I have my ambition and my hunger for the world.
I am, in short, unbelievably blessed. So here's to looking at this scared, fidgety, discomfiting combination of over- and underwhelmed I'm feeling as a blip instead of a sentence or a prophesy. Because that's what it is. A blip. I might as well enjoy where I am now as long as I'm lucky enough to have it.
Easier said then done, but at least I'm trying.