So.

 

It looks like I am supposed to relax about this job thing.

But that is a loose “supposed to” since I know the

minute I start panicking – and I will – I’ll begin to think

I’m “supposed to” be more aggressive in my job search.

 

There are a lot of decisions at hand. Settle, don’t settle.

Go to school, use the degree you have, none of the above.

 

And the worst part is of course that you are the only one

who ever thinks your problems are problems. Every single

person alive but you has a solid, workable solution. That can be

pretty infuriating.

 

One stranger whose name I still don’t know, told me yesterday

that I ought to work a day job and use that money to pay for

school at night. How lovely that she can find said job. I’m sure

it has nothing to do with the fact that she had 2 incomes for the

last 40 years, her job was raising three children while teaching

school (probably the one they went to) and having the desire to

go back for more education in the first place.

 

Everything is not about what I desire, that’s true. But when something

repulses me, it repulses me for a reason. I’m also sure that I’ve been

doing something wrong, and that it would benefit me a lot to find out what

it is, and make a drastic change.

 

Not going deep into debt is very important to me. Because even though

it may give you some semblance of being on your feet and on your

own, it will tie itself to you for the rest of your life.  I don’t want to

take out a loan and go back to school. I have $100,000 working in my favor.

A fee which I have yet to reclaim an ounce of, unless you consider the proverbial

money I’ve saved while living with my grandmother due to unemployment.

 

Being self-sufficient is also important to me. But this seems to be a dream

that eludes me. And oh how heavily and desperately I’ve blamed myself.

I can’t find the right job, I settle, I don’t settle, I do something I love,

I do something I hate. I follow pipe dreams, I abandon dreams, I pursue

stability, I accept life without stability. I pray! I commit my plans to God.

I skip prayer, I start doing things without His response. And to be frank, it’s

felt for a long time that I’d be waiting ’til I was starving in the gutter for God to

give me any guidance. It’s NOT fair for the Lord to conduct a relationship with me

that is not only nearly devoid of any viable, real communication… but to surround

me with people who want me to believe that He IS communicating with me.

 

He’s not, because communication involves a sender and a receiver. What kind of

god sends message after message to someone who is not receiving them. Try

a different route, God; I’m the finite one here.

In my adulthood, I’ve converted my belief in understanding to a belief in coping.

 

Congruently my religion has left behind any hope for behavioral evidence, and has instead

relaxed into a roll-call of faith.

I still actually believe?

Here.

 

My truest desires do not look very impressive on paper, and they cannot be

planed, plotted, or mentally organized. I expect to leave behind the desire for

a prestigious label any day now.

 

And my aspirations toward academic explanation have become overtaken

by a desire to influence popular opinion. Meaning as much as I’d love to go to school and gain

an educated perspective, my experience would become a test and analysis of 

someone else’s knowledge. How unlimited that seems, yet how professional

and detached.

 

I’d love to understand why. I suppose in our depths, we all would. It certainly

seems that if we had understanding, a wise decision or answer would show

itself. Unfortunately, all I seem to gain when I do understand is admiration or

empathy for people who make different choices than I do. I often still make the

choice that I believe in, whether it honors truth or slaps it on its iron face. 

 

I’m limited. My primary daily function is to reach until I find a limit. That means

that my life will be composed, mostly, of coping with limits.

 

It seems to me that the best advice comes from someone who has been inside, seen

the devil, and come back alive. Rarely do I care for advice from someone truly and

completely objective. And rarely have I been that person for anyone else, in my

adulthood. But, in my opinion, not rarely enough.

 

I suppose I’m really saying, writing from life is valid. Writing without reading what

anyone else has written about it, is valid. And if you can grasp the self-confidence

to try it – your work might be even better, untainted with the need to defend your way

through a thousand perspectives from a thousand teachers. In the very least, having

to constantly defend one’s own experiences is an unwise coping method.