If you don't happen to immediately recognize the comic above I won't judge you. Largely because of this comic:
These are recent strips from the phenomenally wonderful webcomic XKCD, which claims to be a comic about romance, sarcasm, math, and language, but is actually about the amazing universe of possibility that all of us inhabit and most of us ignore. But I'll get back to that in a minute.
One of the biggest lies that almost everyone reading this has heard is "you can be anything you want - you just have to work for it." It's a great idea but not everyone can be an astronaut. Most people aren't going to make it as actors or dancers or writers or princesses or artists or even as architects or graphic designers or technical writers. The sad fact of the world is that it needs more data processors than it does ditch diggers, so even the old standby is out.
People talk about my generation as a generation of spoiled, entitled brats. I don't think my generation is particularly entitled, but I do think that my generation was led to expect things that aren't real.
We were told that we would be able to get a great job out of college, which is why we were told to go to college in the first place.
We were told that we "didn't want to work at McDonald's" and so a lot of us are unwilling to take jobs in fast food - largely because the implication through all of our lives has been that working in fast food means you're a failure.
We were told that if we worked hard and put our minds to it, we could do anything we wanted to - but we weren't told that it would take decades working AFTER graduation to move up the ladder and pay dues, all while earning low wages and paying off massive student debts.
We were told that we could "always fall back on teaching" if our field was overloaded, only to find that most of our professors are struggling to get the hours and positions that THEY were promised when they were getting educated, and the line for a tenure position is about a decade long.
We're going out into the working world and complaining that we can't have the jobs we wanted and were specifically educated for because all those jobs are full; we're then told that we're overqualified for the jobs we don't want but can do. "You'd just get bored and leave, or leave if a better offer came along," is the line I heard from potential employers. Well who wouldn't? I've been trained to synthesize vast, disparate fields of knowledge, study information critically and support my findings with evidence and context appropriate to the subject, and the only job I could find that pays well enough to support me is answering phones.
What does that leave us with? Debt, underemployment, dissatisfaction in the workplace, and frustration that the world we were told we just had to work hard for has been denied to us. That's not a sense of entitlement you're seeing in twentysomethings, that's a sense of betrayal.
But just because you probably aren't going to be the next Buzz Aldrin or JK Rowling or Frank Lloyd Wright doesn't mean that you should give up on your dream. You may never get to go to the moon (though seriously, we should get on that - I want commuter flights around the solar system for my grandchildren, dammit) or sign a six-book contract, or build a skyscraper, but that doesn't mean that what you do can't be meaningful to you or to someone else, and even if your work isn't what you REALLY want to be doing there's nothing stopping you from chasing your dreams in your downtime.
Almost none of the writers, actors, musicians, or freak-show performers I know make their living solely based on the art that they love, but all of them make the point to keep up the art anyway. I know a bunch of people in softball, kickball, and roller derby leagues who wanted to be famous, big-name athletes but didn't make the cut. They didn't stop playing sports because they wouldn't be paid for it, they keep playing what they can because sports on the weekends make their weekday lives bearable.
So find a shitty job. Something that pays the bills and bores you to tears and doesn't follow you home. If you wanted to be a writer don't decide that you're going into law because "at least it's something I can do with an English degree" - becoming a lawyer is one of those massive time-sucks that takes over all of your hours and minutes and leaves no time for dreaming. If you studied Chemistry don't become a pharmacist just because "it's at least got SOMETHING to do with my degree." Become a person - a good person - who does your boring, mindless not-in-your-field job well, leaves the office, and then goes home to be a writer. Or a mad scientist. Or an actor or a ballerina or an architect or a graphic designer for a great little magazine that almost nobody reads.
The world may be a terrible place for recent college grads right now, but it's a fantastic place for entrepreneurs. Don't abandon the things that interest you just because you can't find a job where they're relevant; make a part-time job out of them. I don't work for AFLM full time, I don't draw for my income, I don't bake for a business, but I do do all of those things, and they occasionally make me a little bit of money. And I'm holding out hope that something will come from one of them. MAKE something out of the things you care about. Start a small business, write research papers and shop them around to different journals, conduct experiments, draft buildings, translate Greek - whatever it is that you DO and you ARE, do it and be it.
I'm not a receptionist who designs stuff on weekends. I'm a designer who has to work as a receptionist right now. It's all a matter of perspective. The world we live in sucks in a lot of ways, but there are also more opportunities available to us every minute than there were available to our parents every year when they were the same age. We have unique tools and unique skills that allow us as individuals to seek out audiences and find people who appreciate the work that we can do. The world is absolutely alive and teeming with possibilities that we just haven't found yet, and it's our job to go out and look now. Who knows if there's a job out there for a statistics analyst with a background in biology? Is there an employer looking for someone who's familiar with social media and philosophy? Is there a research firm that needs a team of psychologists to pose as waitresses? Who the fuck knows!? Probably all of those things are out there, but its up to us to find those needs and fill those niches.
So look for your joy in unexpected places. If you've got a terrible job make up for it with the time you have outside of work. If you're looking for work remember that just because you're unemployed doesn't mean you can't do anything - build your portfolio or write a children's book or start studying up on biochemistry. Learn a programming language and combine your field with the wide wonders of the web. Find something that drives you, even if you're a long time looking. Look down some day and ask yourself if you aren't really looking up at a universe you've never considered.
Be excellent to each other.
Cheers,
- Alli
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