Monday, October 15, 2012

Personal Battle With Career Identity

Ours is a nation based on career identities. Everyone defines themselves by what they do. I’m not so hip and arrogant as to say we don’t need a good paying job/ career to be comfortable; but what it comes down to is: people get a better feel for your personality after they ask “What do you do?”
I hate answering this question. I can remember in high school when my best friend asked me: “Erin, what are you going to do after you graduate?”
My answer: “I want to be a writer.” My best friend replied, “Writers don’t make money.”
I still, after earning my Bachelor’s degree in Communication Arts, do not know what I want to do for money. I hate all the jobs that would make me money. In Los Angeles, I found out that, if I wanted to work in the film industry, I had to work for producers – run around filing and making phone calls all the time. Somehow, it wasn’t appealing to me.
Growing up, I hated school – all the way until I graduated. I didn’t start to really like school until college – and that was only because I started learning about the things I actually wanted to learn about.
For someone who hates school in general, I could never teach.
I don’t want to be in food service.
I don’t want to be in health care.

Any other job is a means to an end for me. But to what end?
So tell me. What is there for people like me?
Is it that I have a genuine lack of interest in everything, or is that I am faceless if I refuse to let my career define me?
I am not even faceless,
I am a drifter.
And maybe a being a drifter is a bad thing, because it’s been over a year since I graduated college. What have I done? I have cared for children and washed dishes.
Perhaps I am absolutely freaking out because I’m unemployed, and have been for maybe two or three weeks. I have nowhere to go when I wake up and get dressed in the morning. It’s not awesome anymore.
Prayers would be appreciated.