Over the past week I have had numerous well meaning people ask me about my job: boring, boring job at Workplace of Doom. This is happening because I am now searching for a new boring boring job. And by "new" I mean a higher level version of the exact same job that I currently have.
People keep telling me that I am selling myself short and that I can do "more" with my life. Uhm, well thanks. I am a very directed person and I assure all of my readers that if I knew what I wanted to do I would do it. I am even toying with ideas. But I am also deeply aware of my financial situation. I have debt- not a lot of it and it's almost entirely student loans.
I would love to have a devil may care attitude and rush out and take an LSAT course and go to law school to be a child advocate... but I am also aware that spending 60,000 to make less than 40,000 would be bad math.
I would love to go back and get a masters and a teaching certificate, but spending 4 years and 80,000 to make less than 35,000 is colossally, monumentally, mortifyingly fiscally irresponsible.
I grew up very poor and consequently I am very cautious about my finances. I have no parents to give me money, no influential family friends, nowhere to retreat to if I need to lick my wounds. Lonely Quiana is on the trapeze of life without a net. And I am really OK with that; things are just the way they are. I grew up with the phone being canceled and paying for food with change. Sure, I would like to make more money- that is my job-hunt focus right now. Sure, I would love to own a bakery, or a bookstore, or something- but I LOVE having electricity. I LOVE not worrying about next month's rent, or the dentist, or an accident.
Yes, I take it as a compliment that people view me as a highly skilled/smart person. But offering me advice as to the myriad of better things that I could be doing with my time just makes me feel that my accomplishments are not good enough.
1 comment:
Y'know what?
Do what you like to do. Do what makes you happy, today, today. If you like doing what you do, then GOOD. Being driven to do something, to make a mark on the world is a good thing, but it is equally important to have people in normal jobs doing them well. Being detail oriented and intellegent are qualities just as useful in a run-of-the-mill job as they are in lawyering.
It's far, far better to be able to afford the life you have than to try to afford the life you (or others) think you should have.
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