Get a Real Job

I'm 32 years old. I have been 'granted' a 4-year degree that gets me into lots of career doors, and I am in the middle of a master's degree that will open even more. I have yet to find a job that inspires me here at home. I love school and learning new things (though I'm less-than-enamoured with my current program). I started the master's degree because after coming home from my last trip to Korea I thought it was probably time to get a 'real job', do something with my life that the rest of the world thinks is worthy of my intelligence and abilities. "Leaving your friends and family behind so you can go caravanning around the world, living in a foreign country, travelling to yet different countries on long weekends and holidays - this is for kids," says the World. "When are you going to grow up and make something of yourself?"


Well World, I've taken your words to heart. I've spent a lot of time in the past 2 years thinking about what kind of footprint I want to leave behind, what kind of impact I want to have on the world around me. I'm aware that I'm a good counselor, and that I will make a fabulous child psychologist (thanks for the reinforcement there by the way!).


Here's the point for pause though: Who says that teaching in a foreign country can't be a career too? Who says that it isn't a valid contribution for me to go to work every day in order to teach children a skill that can hugely impact their future? What part of the scenario in which I wake up happy and excited to go to work every day is not in my best interest? Who says I have to do what everyone else is doing at the same time they're doing it? Can you answer me any of those questions while you're telling me what to do World?


Here's what I think: My happiness is important. Who I am is not the same as what I do. If I can wake up every day happy and excited about the adventure that has become my life, why shouldn't I choose that over "putting my nose to the grindstone," "doing what I have to do to get by," and sleeping my way through life until I get to a more exciting part?


It seems that there is only one answer if I am to be true to myself. I know that it may disappoint some other people in my life, but how can I do what makes them happy if it means that I can't be true to my own heart? I can't. It's time that I figure out how to make my happiness come first again in life, for me to remember who I am, what I want and where I'm going. It's just that time... so look out World!