So, for the last several months, I have been searching for a job. My standards really aren't that high... I just want a job where I make at least $8.00 an hour (before taxes, of course), can sit down for at least some of the time, and that doesn't involve me calling people to sell them things. As of yet, I haven't determined whether I am overqualified or underqualified for jobs such as an office assistant, customer service call center representative, or data entry clerk, but either way, I've had no success yet.
However, I have to admit that I am learning a lot by being unemployed. For example, I have found a lot of humility and a true sense of how thankful I should be. I'm realizing now that for most of my life, things have come easily for me. I did well in school without really having to put in much work, I pretty much learn anything I'm taught the first time it is taught to me, if I needed or wanted a job, there was always someone who had one to hand me or a new business opening who was hiring a lot workers all at once. When money has gotten tight for me in the past, I always just had to hold on until my student loans came in or for the next lump sum from my annuity, and until those days came, someone in my family always had the money to help me get by. Truthfully, I have had many days recently where I considered selling some of those annuity payments so I could have some money now, but I keep deciding against it because I've decided this is a lesson I need to learn: how to work for a living.
It seems like it is something a person should just know how to do, and I always thought of myself as a hard worker, to be fair. And yet, I have never truly had to work for a living. People can say that that's fine because school should be my work, should be my number one priority, and yeah for a lot of people, that is true! They do have to work and work at school to be successful. I am not one of those people. There were times when I had to work hard maybe one or two days a week, mostly because of the amount of work I had to do, but I hardly ever studied for tests, rarely did the assigned readings, and yet I have a 3.56 GPA in my major as a senior in college in one of the most strenuous theatre departments of its kind around here. Now all of my professors who are reading this are probably baffled or maybe shaking their heads and thinking that if only I had done those things and put in the work, I could probably have close to a 4.0, and that's probably true, but that's not the point of this post.
The point is, at this point in my life, I am choosing to teach myself a lesson because in a few more years, if I haven't learned how to work for a living, there aren't going to be as many people who think I should still be helped along the way. Right now, my teeth hurt because I haven't been to the dentist in years simply because when my mom's dental insurance did cover me, I didn't want to go; I hated going to the dentist. Now, I have discovered, she can no longer get dental insurance on me, so until I can get a job and afford my own dental insurance, I am stuck with this terrible, nagging pain. Perhaps it will provide me with some extra motivation to put even more job applications in...
I have also learned just a lot in general about getting a job. After a couple of months of trying and failing, I decided to seek help by going to WorkOne and taking advantage of a lot of the services they offer. Always expecting to live in the theatre world, I never thought about what an employer outside of that realm would be looking for on a resume. Turns out that for two months, I had been submitting resumes that were essentially useless to the employers who were looking at them. It has been a real struggle changing my mindset and rebuilding my resume from the ground up, but I'm making progress, and hopefully this week, I will get a thumbs up with my new resume and I can find some success.
The biggest thing I have learned, though, is that you cannot improve your life if you keep acting like you are a victim of it. I think that maybe this is one of those lessons I learned a long time ago and forgot, but it is something I am learning again now. I felt like a victim of life after student teaching didn't work out for me and I decided it was best to go down a different road, and I felt like a victim again after we had to cancel Journeys this summer. Now, though, I see that this is an opportunity to learn and grow, to learn about new things and new areas that I never thought I'd be part of and now have a chance to be. I will make valuable business connections and learn important skills that are going to help me when I try to get into a master's program for nonprofit management with absolutely no education in business. Instead of being a victim of life, I need to be a student of it.
So, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, right?
Except sugar can be kind of expensive, so maybe I'll just... use the lemon juice to clean something or get the weird smell out of the garbage disposal or something. Lemon juice does those things, right?
Oh, all the things you need to learn in life that they don't teach you in school!
However, I have to admit that I am learning a lot by being unemployed. For example, I have found a lot of humility and a true sense of how thankful I should be. I'm realizing now that for most of my life, things have come easily for me. I did well in school without really having to put in much work, I pretty much learn anything I'm taught the first time it is taught to me, if I needed or wanted a job, there was always someone who had one to hand me or a new business opening who was hiring a lot workers all at once. When money has gotten tight for me in the past, I always just had to hold on until my student loans came in or for the next lump sum from my annuity, and until those days came, someone in my family always had the money to help me get by. Truthfully, I have had many days recently where I considered selling some of those annuity payments so I could have some money now, but I keep deciding against it because I've decided this is a lesson I need to learn: how to work for a living.
It seems like it is something a person should just know how to do, and I always thought of myself as a hard worker, to be fair. And yet, I have never truly had to work for a living. People can say that that's fine because school should be my work, should be my number one priority, and yeah for a lot of people, that is true! They do have to work and work at school to be successful. I am not one of those people. There were times when I had to work hard maybe one or two days a week, mostly because of the amount of work I had to do, but I hardly ever studied for tests, rarely did the assigned readings, and yet I have a 3.56 GPA in my major as a senior in college in one of the most strenuous theatre departments of its kind around here. Now all of my professors who are reading this are probably baffled or maybe shaking their heads and thinking that if only I had done those things and put in the work, I could probably have close to a 4.0, and that's probably true, but that's not the point of this post.
The point is, at this point in my life, I am choosing to teach myself a lesson because in a few more years, if I haven't learned how to work for a living, there aren't going to be as many people who think I should still be helped along the way. Right now, my teeth hurt because I haven't been to the dentist in years simply because when my mom's dental insurance did cover me, I didn't want to go; I hated going to the dentist. Now, I have discovered, she can no longer get dental insurance on me, so until I can get a job and afford my own dental insurance, I am stuck with this terrible, nagging pain. Perhaps it will provide me with some extra motivation to put even more job applications in...
I have also learned just a lot in general about getting a job. After a couple of months of trying and failing, I decided to seek help by going to WorkOne and taking advantage of a lot of the services they offer. Always expecting to live in the theatre world, I never thought about what an employer outside of that realm would be looking for on a resume. Turns out that for two months, I had been submitting resumes that were essentially useless to the employers who were looking at them. It has been a real struggle changing my mindset and rebuilding my resume from the ground up, but I'm making progress, and hopefully this week, I will get a thumbs up with my new resume and I can find some success.
The biggest thing I have learned, though, is that you cannot improve your life if you keep acting like you are a victim of it. I think that maybe this is one of those lessons I learned a long time ago and forgot, but it is something I am learning again now. I felt like a victim of life after student teaching didn't work out for me and I decided it was best to go down a different road, and I felt like a victim again after we had to cancel Journeys this summer. Now, though, I see that this is an opportunity to learn and grow, to learn about new things and new areas that I never thought I'd be part of and now have a chance to be. I will make valuable business connections and learn important skills that are going to help me when I try to get into a master's program for nonprofit management with absolutely no education in business. Instead of being a victim of life, I need to be a student of it.
So, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, right?
Except sugar can be kind of expensive, so maybe I'll just... use the lemon juice to clean something or get the weird smell out of the garbage disposal or something. Lemon juice does those things, right?
Oh, all the things you need to learn in life that they don't teach you in school!
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