Unrealistic Expectations?

"That's why it's called work and they pay you. If it was nonstop fun and thrills, you would pay them and call it Disneyland." - Lisa Earle McLeod, writer

It's my last day on the job. Oh yeah! You can bet your ass I'll be singing happy songs in my car on the ride home tonight. Woo-wee!

Underlying my excitement is this gnawing fear, along with doubts about all of the changes I'm about to go through. What if I go to grad school and bust my butt for two years and get deeper into debt (yay student loans) and then get my master's degree only to find that my job situation SUCKS as much as before going to grad school? And then I'll still have a job I don't enjoy, plus big old payments each month to pay for the schooling that got me there. It's been stressing me out lately, I must say. There are definite risks involved, and I hope the end result won't be a massive letdown.

I've just recently come to realize that part of my problem is my idealism about work. Ultimately, I'd like to be in a career where I get to be creative, get paid well (or at least enough to support myself) and do meaningful work that makes a difference. Oh, yes...and I'll feel excited to get out of bed each morning to start a new day. You can stop your snickering now. I realize how overly-optimistic that sounds. Yes, I'd like all of that. Who wouldn't? Nobody ever says, "I'd like to have a boring, meaningless job where I barely have enough time or money to sleep and eat."

Okay, so I've swiftly removed my head from the clouds and am reminding myself that work will not always be 100% fun and fulfilling. That doesn't mean I can't feel good about what I'm doing, in general, or that in the long run I should settle for a job that doesn't use any of my talents, etc. What it does mean is that I shouldn't expect perfection, because doing so is bound to result in disappointment and resentment. What a concept.

With all that said, I still stand by my claim that this job I've had for the past two-and-a-half years has been a dead-end pile of poo. It's my fault for staying here as long as I did, but at least I'm getting out now and moving on to bigger and (hopefully) better things. As a wise friend of mine recently said (you know who you are), this job has been a blessing in disguise because it gave me that shove I needed to get flustered enough to go after what I really want to do with my life. Had I ended up in a semi-satisfying job that wasn't really what I wanted to do, but paid enough for me to get accustomed to a certain lifestyle (and thus not afford the risk of quitting to go back to school), then I probably wouldn't have gone after what I wanted and needed all along. Not that grad school or my career afterwards will be perfect (there's that word again), but at least I'll know I stayed true to myself and did what I thought was best for me at the time, instead of giving in to fears or compliance. Hopefully it will all pay off in the end. If not, then I'll manage...but it probably won't be any worse than my current situation, and I've survived that. That's right, I'm a survivor. Cue Destiny's Child for today's blog soundtrack.

Countdown: THE END!!!!!

posted by elizabeth @ 12:42 PM