Serious Alert- this post is kind of serious today but I feel compelled to tell you about a good book I'm currently reading!
Remember when you got your first "real job"? I got my first real salaried job that was 40 hours a week about 3 months after I graduated from college. My whole spring semester of my senior year I wanted a job offer. I wanted to know what I would be doing, I wanted to know that I mattered out there in the real world! I felt that until I got a job offer, I was a failure and had to keep at it until I was successful.
My first real job was with Mercy Ships, an amazing international non-profit that has a hospital ship in West Africa that provides surgeries for free to people. I knew this job would be amazing because I would be working for an organization that made a difference in the world, my co-workers would be super fun, and I got to travel all over the place monthly (I got to go to Africa, France, LA, NY, and all over the US).
The day that I got offered the job I felt relief. I mattered, I did it! Almost immediately after I said yes to this fantastic job, I felt my freedom being stifled. I realized I would get 10 vacation days a year, my paycheck would go toward adult things like healthcare and rent, I'd pay taxes, and I'd be in a office most days from 9-5 and working 40 hours a week.
It was a rude awakening to realize there would be no more naps, no more working out whenever I felt like it, no more hanging out with my buds for hours during the day, no more staying up until 2am and getting up at 10am or later during the week. I had to plan out when I'd use my vacation days. I had to make a budget.
Instead of feeling awesome and happy the day I go my first real job, I felt kind of cheated, like the good life was over until I got to retire someday.
Now that I've been in the working world for a few years now (I had to leave my awesome first job when I got married and moved) I'm used to the working life and I like the structure. I know I'm blessed to have a job, and I know that 9-5 can be really nice compared to the uncertainty that a lot of people have when it comes to working right now.
Do you remember your first job? Did you feel like your freedom was gone? I'm reading The Defining Decade-Why Your Twenties Matter and How to Make the Most of Them Now.
At first I was terrified to read this book. I thought I'd find out that I was doing life all wrong but, so far I've felt encouraged by what the author has to say. She has addressed a lot of my feelings toward work and my worth in this world as a person. If you're a 20 something and need some enlightenment on life, then I highly recommend this book! I'm not done with it yet and will write a review of it when I'm finished but, so far I'm learning some great things.
3 comments:
I'll have to check out this book!
I'll be thirty next year, and I still feel this way. It's actually one of my main reasons for not wanting to have kids. I spent my whole childhood life working hard in school so that I could get a good job. I've had a job since I was 16, I worked full time and went to school full time from my Junior year of college til I graduated. I job my first "real job" two months after graduation, and I'm already exhausted with life. And the worst part is... that "good job" I worked so hard for? I never found it. I still have no idea what I want to do in life, and I feel like time is ticking away so fast. I haven't had a chance to really enjoy my life, so I just don't want to give the rest of it away to a child. If you can't tell, you really hit a nerve here with me because I've been struggling so hard with this lately. I'm actually near tears right now... Definitely going to check that book out even though my time as a 20 something is near its end. Thanks for sharing!
This book may be just what you need to read right now, she addresses a lot of what you are talking about!
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