Don't Expect, Just Do

I was speaking to a friend yesterday and he tends to always give me the same advice: keep writing because you’ll be doing what you love even if you aren’t getting paid for it. He also told me that just because I put in the time with my education and with years at these other internships to get the valuable work experience that I would need, that I can’t expect anything. And that’s exactly what I have been doing. I’ve been expecting that because I did all of the right things, took all of the right steps, that I would get that job in the end. Well, in a competitive field where everyone else has gone through the same motions, you can’t expect anything. So, my very wise friend said, don’t expect…do! Reminiscent of Nike’s “Just Do It,” I realized that he was right. I can keep sitting around complaining about the job market, the unfairness of unpaid internships, and in general just keep feeling sorry for myself, or I can keep doing everything in my power to outshine the others and get a step ahead.

And indeed if I claim to love writing so much, it should be something I continue to do for the love of it. If I’m not disciplining myself now to be writing on a daily basis, then how can I really expect to have the discipline and motivation to do it when that job finally does come along? So, I am going to re-dedicate myself to maintaining this blog. Since I have so much time on my hands, it really shouldn’t be all that difficult to write a post every day. And if I am diligently writing every day, then maybe I’ll be able to produce quality articles for freelance.

Ultimately though, it is in general about doing something you love with your life and doing something that you enjoy every single day. I am tired of spending my days feeling depressed, exhausted, and upset about everything. The fact of the matter is, laying in bed feeling sorry for myself isn’t doing anything to change that. So, the fact that I feel trapped is because I am; I’m trapped in my own prison of pity and disappointment…and we all know that pity parties aren’t fun and really don’t ever do anyone any good.

So, I choose to say “screw you cruel world, you can’t get the better of me, I’m way too stubborn to listen to you.” Maybe I only have enough money to just get by right now, if that, but that’s still more than a lot of people out there. So I’ll do those internships, I will rock them, and I will make everyone in the office know I am an asset that they simply cannot lose, and even if I don’t get the job at the end of it, I’ll keep working through the next internship and prove myself for the next one. At least that means I am getting myself out there and trying. And in an industry that connections matter more than anything else, every opportunity exposes me to more people and to more opportunities.

For now, I’m going to be content with the little bit of background work I’ve been fortunate enough to do. Really, who doesn’t want to get paid for walking, sitting, eating, and having enough down time to keep up the job search? It isn’t much, but it is definitely a blessing. Things could be a lot worse. 

So things are at a stand still huh?

So what is happiness? Lately I have been very down and out – unemployment tends to do that to a person. I tend to have a bad habit of comparing myself with others: those I went to school with who now have great jobs, those who I grew up with who are now engaged, married, or have children….and it constantly leaves me feeling directionless and that I haven’t achieved anything. I know this is absurd because I have achieved things, a lot of things, so why do I feel this way?

I think it is basic human nature, as bad a habit as it is, to feel unhappy when things don’t look the way that we think they should or would look. Of course I knew that it was ridiculously naïve to believe that I would land my dream job as soon as I graduated, but I don’t think I was fully prepared for how crushing it would feel to be so stagnant and directionless.

We are spoon fed the North American dream: if you go to school and get a good education, you will get a good job that will pay you enough to have a comfortable and happy life. Well, unfortunately the education system tends to fail us when we do get into the real world and are completely unprepared for it. Come September I will have been finished school for a year now: a year without solid work and the ability to begin paying back my student loan and a year that has made me feel so utterly unqualified for everything and to know my rightful place (Master’s degree and all) at the bottom of the employment pool. Unless I am willing to enslave myself if multiple unpaid internships and spend another year with no income, but building my work experience and connections, I can never expect to begin to swim out of the bottom of the pool and I will drown. So, that’s what I’m doing. Drowning in debt and despair, I take on one unpaid internship after the other with the optimism that SOMETHING will change soon, that my shot is coming up. And what if it doesn’t? My main question is how do we find happiness in a life that we never wanted or didn’t plan? How do we be happy with the retail job while we keep getting ourselves out there? And what if we never do get there and have to take a completely different road….how do we fend off disappointment?

To be realistic, it’s a harsh economic climate to be a new grad, any new grad, but especially a new grad in the arts. There are still opportunities out there for business and technological grads to get paid internships, while anything in media, publishing, and the arts tends to be highly competitive and always unpaid. “It’s the nature of the business” everyone keeps saying, but why? Partially because the arts has always been underfunded and underappreciated in our society, but also because too many people are accept instead of question that this is just the way it is. Because there are about 100 more just as motivated new grads behind you ready and willing to take that unpaid internship, if you stand on principle and say “no I refuse to be exploited and work for free” then any of these others will. If there is such a high demand for work with such a low supply, the industry can do anything it wants to: including exploiting students and new grads simply because they can. Don’t get me wrong, I believe internships are very important and that they help you learn a lot, but I also believe that if you are doing any work that benefits the company….you should be getting paid for it. Also, it is unbelievably unrealistic to assume that new grads can dedicate all of the time and energy into unpaid internships when doing so ensures that they can’t pay rent, pay back their loans; indeed meet any of their day to day needs. So, you  end up in three unpaid internships which take up all of your spare time, you also work nights at a dead end job – usually retail or customer service – and I would say wake up and do it all over again, but who are we kidding, you never really get to sleep. So you are over worked, not paid, not healthy, and you are expected to do this all with an incredibly positive attitude and glow with pride and say “thank you for the opportunity”

And yet, here I am doing it. I have no wise advice to share; I am kind of in need of some myself right now. I just try and take it one day at a time and do the best I can (although sometimes I’d rather stay in bed and cry….just being honest). So, when everything in life is negative, even your bank account, remember that trying to see the positive is a choice. Indeed a very difficult choice, but it is a choice that I am trying to make every day. Even if it is dragging myself away from my computer and the job search to walk around outside in the sunshine, I am desperately trying to not give in to the crippling anxiety and disappointment. But, on days when you are told in an interview (one that was an incredibly long process and that you were really looking forward to and starting to feel like things were finally turning around) and they tell you that you are better suited for a writing position than editing and project management, and direct you to hr to apply for yet another unpaid internship, it’s hard to not just cry all day and wonder when things will finally start to turn around.

Again I have no words of wisdom. Everyone else does and they offer them constantly and they don’t really help, so I’m not going to offer any here. I’m sorry new grads that this economic climate sucks and that we are all applying for the same jobs – hundreds of us at a time for one spot to fill. I wish you good luck and days of glimmering hope to encourage you to keep going. And on days when that hope and dreaming that things will finally work out seems utterly pointless, let yourself cry and then take a break from the drudgery and try and do one thing that makes it feel better. For me that tends to be eating ice cream....or looking at pictures of pugs. Even if life isn’t the way we want it to be, and even if it may never be, life is still a gift and you should try to find the things in it that you enjoy. Maybe something else will come up, it won’t be what you planned, but it will be ok. Or, maybe…just maybe….you will get everything you’ve been dreaming of and working so hard to make happen.   

  How I feel most days.