Well, friends, tomorrow is the day I can stop chewing my nails off.
Maybe. It’s the deadline for the DoSomething.org internship I applied for last month. Technically they have until the 18th to contact me for an interview/polite rejection letter. And basically I’m like:
Even if I don’t get it, I’m happy that I’ve discovered new opportunities. Before I found this internship, I thought it was over for me after college because I couldn’t find a job or a place where I felt truly passionate. And I NEED passionate. I don’t like to go for anything (friendships, relationships, jobs, coffee) unless I’m head-over-heels for it.
Let me back that up for a second. I’ve worked in a LOT of places (especially with field experience study), and I’ve gained wonderful experiences as well as wonderful co-worker friends. To have a job at all, to me, is one of the greatest blessings I can imagine. But, being that I do have that privilege, I don’t see why I would settle for anything less than my loftiest dream. Everywhere that I have worked has been incredible. I don’t really have any work horror stories. And yet, something has never felt right.
My brain sees pictures. Pictures for everything. When I smell something, I can picture it, too. It’s an oddity I can’t really explain, because I don’t fully understand it myself. Anyway, when I think about work and my future, I get this picture in my head. When I think of a career as, say, a doctor or secretary, I envision a gray, still picture. And I think that’s pretty self-explanatory.
But when I think of my hand holding someone else’s as I help them to their feet…when I think of singing in a chorus… when I think of executing a triple pirouette… when I think of dozens and dozens of off-white pages looking me in the eyes, waiting for my pen to alter them forever… when I think of myself inside the music and surrounded by people metaphorically on fire… the color in my mind is ubiquitous. It’s luminous. It splashes every corner of my thoughts with vibrancy.
Isn’t that how it should be? Over the past year, I’ve heard legions of people tell me they hate working. They can’t wait until they’re retired. Every day is excruciatingly painful. Mondays are awful. Can’t wait til Saturday.
We are TWENTY. If this is what the next 45 years of my life are going to be like, I might as well shut off all feeling and hope in my heart until I retire. At this age, shouldn’t we be naive and burning with passion for our careers? For the next 90,000 hours of our working lives? Someone recently said to me, “Well, it just doesn’t work like that, Mol. Work isn’t fun. Welcome to adulthood.”
I just won’t take that for an answer. I refuse. I want my career to feed kerosene to the fire in my heart. I want the flames to creep up through my throat and into my words. Into the things I see and feel.
I want to wake up every morning (okay, at least 90% of mornings… I really hate mornings) feeling only excitement. A job should be a place where everyone’s best ideas come to life. I want a job where I WANT to come to work on Saturdays if I have time… where Mondays are simply symbolic for a week full of fresh opportunities and possibilities.
I don’t want a career. I don’t want a job. What I do want is to go to a designated place each day where I want to WORK for something that matters to me and matters to others. I want fire. I can’t wait til I’m surrounded by people who are bursting with ideas and challenge me. DoSomething.org will hopefully be the first place I discover such a miracle, but even if it isn’t, I know I won’t rest until I find a flame to add to my own.
Unharnessed 