This post is going to sound a little whiny and self-serving. Only a little, toward the beginning really, but I'm warning you in advance so you can back out now and not make any rolling-your-eyes comments about my #firstworldproblems.
I've been sort of looking at making a big career shift, which Penelope Trunk says is fine, because most of Generation Y only stays in a job for 18 months. That is a comforting fact in relation to my recent career shifting, but not such a comforting when I realize that I spent almost four years in the same job doing the same damn thing everyday without a promotion. Why did no one tell me that I needed to GET UP TO SPEED WITH GEN Y?! #firstworldproblems
There was a time in my life when I thought that I would be a corporate rockstar. I guess technically, I still could be, but I'm certainly not headed on that path. I like to work hard, and have goals and a direction, but it's really hard to see the value in something that neither I nor anyone else I care about is directly benefitting from (for example, analyzing financial projections for a tech startup, or refilling a damn coffee urn because a client is going to be working late on a filing). I'm big picture, and I'm a people person. Someone forgot to tell me that entry level corporate jobs in New York City require absolute obedience and the desire to be really, really small picture, which I am most definitely not (An example of this is that I write blog posts riddled with grammatical errors not because I'm illiterate but because I simply don't care enough to read my blog posts through after I've written them). I have enormous ideas and the initiative to start them, but what I really need is someone to follow through on my awesome ideas for me while I go start other awesome ideas (#firstworldproblems).
So anyway, I graduated from college and had wild dreams about being a rock star event planner and being flown miles around the world to plan events for dream clients and then yada yada heading up some HUGE corporate event planning division and living in a bombass apartment in midtown and owning furniture not from IKEA.
But I slowly realized that 1) Events is not the industry for that to be your life ever, ever, ever and 2) traveling on someone else's dime means you're not actually doing the traveling piece but instead just doing your job in a different city with a different commute in the morning and a different pizza joint to try out for dinners.
So teaching? Well, teaching is sort of one of those careers that I never thought I'd want to have, partially because (don't hate me) it's not all that hard to get a teaching job. I always just thought that I was better than teaching and that I deserved to play on an adult level.
But I feel like that's stupid. No, that's definitely stupid. 1) Anyone can teach, but teaching and MAKING AN IMPACT is incredibly, incredibly difficult. 2) It's also stupid to live your life for anyone else. It sounds ridiculous and cliche, but I swear, I'd be good if I never had to wear ill-performing, non-sweat absorbing cotton dress shirts ever, ever again 3) Everyone in the corporate world wants to be a teacher, they just don't call it teaching. They call it mentoring, or coaching, or public-speaking-on-my-area-of-expertise. But it's really, really just teaching. It's not teaching kids, which is somehow supposed to make it one of those three previous words that I listed above.
So, bottom line is that I love to travel. I love to change my surroundings and am feeling so goddang antsy in New York. I love blogging when I get comments like "yep, girl, you inspired me today" and I love guiding when I feel like someone totally has an AHA moment after I describe the flight patterns of a turkey vulture.
And I secretly want to spend a month or so at a time learning to SCUBA dive, or surf like a champ, or ski my face off. And when you're a teacher (especially a teacher at THIS badass school or THIS sick place for kiddos) it's not only part of your work environment, it's LITERALLY PART OF YOUR JOB to be proficient at awesome action sports.
So, I'm moving to India for a bit, gunna get my ass kicked by mountains, carry my entire life on my back, learn how to mountaineer, travel around the rest of India for a while and then get on with the living, traveling and educating. Sure, it makes me feel a little guilty that the return on my fancy schmancy college investment is going toward a lifestyle like this, but I can't live my life for anyone else, can I?
Have you ever completely shifted gears? In life or school or elsewhere?
4 comments:
I recently quit my full time job (which I had been working at for 18 months, no doubt) in order to go back to grad school full time and focus on tutoring and researching with the goal of becoming a professor. Although it's not nearly as adventurous as your shift (I'm in Rochester, no doubt), I do find it somewhat culturally interesting seeing as I am the only one in my class who's first language is English (including my professor). And although the switch from an 8-to-5 life to a pulling-all-nighters-every-week life is a bit stressful, I haven't been this happy in a long time (at least 18 months).
Congratulations on your decision! I'm glad you've been posting frequently, I check your blog every day.
wow. moving to india. Amazing. I am afraid to go to Europe on our honeymoon bc of the language barier and you are moving to India. You are an inspiration.
Good to see you're blogging again. I've definitely drastically shifted gears multiple times...and I'm only 25. I started college studying education, switched to business and got a degree in information systems and finance, decided I didn't want a corporate job after graduation and went on a life-changing road trip, changed my mind again and accepted a corporate job at a software company, lasted 13 months, quit, went to Peru to get my TEFL Certificate, and now I'm back to teaching...I'm an ESL teacher and I've been living in Peru and Costa Rica for the past 6 months.
So, what I'm trying to say is that shifting gears is not only good, but necessary. We have to do it to challenge ourselves and become better people. Change is the only way to grow. Congratulations on your big change and good luck.
"To change is difficult. Not to change is fatal."
Congrats on making this decision! Sounds like an awesome idea. Finding a teaching job is going to be interesting, hopefully by the time you return they'll be hiring them again...
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