I have been out of college a month and a half and I feel burnt out on reality. I'm frustrated and discouraged. I feel like I'm watching my dreams become more and more unrealistic. I'm angry and feel deceived. I went to college for four years so I could spend my life doing something I enjoy but I feel as if the people along the path to get me here never told the whole truth. They all made it seem like going to school was like opening this great door into a realm of endless possibility.I did so much throughout college, working my ass off. Between the Global Leadership Center, studying abroad twice, working at the restaurant, being in Alpha Phi Omega, starting STAND and a slew of miscellaneous other things I barely had time to sleep. I put myself through all this misery to wind up nearly $30,000 in debt and living at my parents house wondering if I should've gotten another waitressing job before picking up and moving across the country with no job or money.
Where was the honesty about the number of interviews, the dumb questions I'd be forced to answer on the spot, the waiting and waiting... and more waiting just to hear that someone 'more qualified' was chosen? Why didn't they explain that even though you go to college nearly every employer is going to want someone with 1-5 years of experience in the field? If I had known that I guess I would've tried getting a real job while I was in the middle of trying to be a full time student. Just how exactly is anyone supposed to get this experience anyway if no one will let them work for them without it?
To top off the stress of having -$30,000 and rising... or... lowering.... err.... anyway- I now have my family trying to pour it on thick with the guilt I should feel for moving to the other side of the country. Forget being grateful for me not moving to China or someplace back in Africa or anyplace else in the entire world. I think to them it's about the same. I don't understand... I thought this is what people do. We grow up and we outgrow our beginnings. Home towns are just starting places to send us on to something more. To prepare us, mold us into our future selves. What good is that if my future self is here now and can't go and face the rest of this incredibly vast place in which we live? I know that many if not most people are satisfied with that staying put and there's nothing wrong with that. It just isn't and hasn't ever been for me. The thought of it scares me half to death. It feels like stagnation. I want to go on to more adventures and new people where I can keep on changing, growing, learning. I'm not ready to believe that college was the best years of my life and that carefree time in my life is over.
Being around my family is somewhat of a downer. They seem so cynical. I know that I'm young and naive but I want to be old and naive one day. Sometimes it's like they're trying to break my spirit. I say that I believe in things like equality and volunteering, that I'm a bit of a Marxist. I believe in having a job that pays less but does more for the world and mankind. I care about things like human beings instead of things like money. They treat me like some dumb kid who just doesn't get it yet. Part of me thinks they're right, that one day I'll just buy in- sell out. I'll give up the persistent hoping and just buy a house and do the 'normal' crap.
How do we ever know our true limitations until we have pushed ourselves to them? I have such big dreams of giving it my all and really changing the world, even if it's just a tiny ripple. I feel them starting to die and I need to build a resistance. Our whole lives people fill us with all this hope that we can do absolutely anything with our dreams. Maybe I never released the childlike beliefs that all those posters from QUEST class instilled in me.
In a way I feel cheated by all the inspirational messages over the years. Everyone so filled with faith and belief in my potential and the certainty of my bright future. Perhaps all that pampering filled me with undue confidence. I always believed strongly that I was supposed to do something important, big. What if I was just supposed to be average?
I wish sometimes that I hadn't been so spoiled and that I knew that now that I have to I can make it out there on my own. Out in the big cruel reality of things. I think that some hard knocks would've made my writing better at the very least. My life hasn't been perfect but I'd say it's been just short. Now my standards are so high for the future. I don't want to settle for less than the job of my dreams or for less than... my dreams themselves. I just beg of all powers that be that something good comes out of the experience of moving to Los Angeles. That it isn't a mistake made based on one of my many whimsical decisions. This isn't whimsical- it's huge. The biggest risk I've ever taken and... well, I'm afraid of failure like everybody else. Los Angeles, brace yourself cause I'm coming with high expectations.
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