askpixie.

07.24.04

Hey there, Very pleased to see you're back at last! Anyway, my askpixie poser.. I'm going to graduate soon with a half-decent maths degree (woo!).. BUT i still have no idea where to go from there. I've looked into teaching teenagers, and while I think I can cope with teaching, I can't cope with the kids. So I'm going along to accountancy at the moment, although I think it will be deathly boring. I just can't stand the thought that now uni is over, there is NOTHING exciting left on the horizon. My parents would sooner die than see me take any time off whatsoever, my mum being an accountant herself. Any nuggets of wisdom you can .. erm .. well, whatever you do when you reveal nuggets? Cheers Dave, of rainy England

Thank you, it's nice to be back!

When I graduated high school, I had absolutely no thoughts of doing anything beyond going immediately into college, because it was what was expected of me. My whole life I was academically-driven, and there was a tremendous amount of peer pressure to excel at everything and always advance to the next level.

Hell, my friends and I used to secretly snicker about people that were going to community college or going to work instead of going to a real University, because we were asses. I remember around college acceptance letter time, we used to ask Jenny Bennett if she'd gotten her acceptance letter to Capri (beauty school) yet, or if she was going to go to La'James or Young's instead. She used to hate that, so we kept doing in daily.

I didn't know what I was going to do in college, or how I was going to pay for it, but I decided to visit the Air Force recruiters to see what they had to say about things -- I was in Civil Air Patrol in highschool and liked it, so a possible career in the military didn't seem so unlikely at the time. They looked at my records and told me flat-out that Nursing was the way to go: I'd get college paid for, get a stipend, get an education, and actually have a career as an officer when I graduated. I wouldn't have to ponder your dilemma, ever.

I hated ROTC, I hated Nursing, I hated college. But I stuck with things until they became absolutely unbearable because I wasn't a quitter -- even though my grades were slipping, I was chronically ill, and I was terribly depressed, I soldiered on. Then I was forced to quit ROTC and Nursing, and instead of going open-major for a while, I polled my friends about their majors, and picked Communications, sight unseen. There always had to be a game plan in effect. Goals were terribly important.

I hated Communications, and ended up going with Studio Art, because what few electives I'd gotten to take were art classes, and I'd liked them. But by this time, I was so burnt out by trying to fit into these perceived societal objectives, that I wasn't able to be a part of society. Of course, this was the beginning of the Bell Jar Year, and we know how well that went.

What I should have done from the get-go was to stop and listen to that little part of me that was questioning everything, pondering the numerous opportunities that lay in front of me. I should have stopped and realized that I wasn't ready to do what everyone else was doing, what everyone was pressuring me to accomplish, and just been myself. I should have stopped and taken a year off before college, working and travelling to "find myself."

So, my advise to you is to stop and listen. If your heart is telling you that you need to spend a little time finding yourself before launching into a career, then listen to it.

And you have years and years to have a career. I didn't find mine until recently, and it may not even be the one I adhere to forever. I fumbled around for so long, that when I found myself in beauty school at La'James -- ironic, that -- I didn't know what to think. Now I love doing hair, I like running a salon, but maybe someday I will want to be something else.

You have many opportunities to reinvent yourself -- look at Madonna, or even on smaller scale, look at my mom. She was a college student, a mom, a wife several times over, a divorcee several times over as well, a waitress, a bartender, a nightclub manager, a teacher, and a million little things in between, until she found her vocation helping people through the Department of Human Services.

You're only a quarter through your life, you've got years and years left to figure out what you want to be when you grow up.

You will never be able to live up to the expectations of everyone else, no matter what they tell you, so only try to live up to your own expectations.

Be who you are now, and be happy with that.

-- pixie

P.S. I hope this was worth the wait.

 

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