On what you want to do

My sister posed an interesting question today.  She is working part-time at the moment and is still hunting around for a full-time job, so she does more than her fair share of filling out and submitting job applications for all kinds of different positions.  Because she is in job hunt mode, she often hears the following question from people:  What do you want to do?  

Her answer gave me pause because this is something of a loaded question.  The two of us talked about it and essentially came down to the following conclusion.  If getting a job was as easy as figuring out what you want to do and then just doing it, that would make for one easy transition.  However, it's not that easy (as my sister can verify) and most of the time we end up taking jobs that are far from being "what we want to do," but are instead necessary just so we can get our professional career started (and also pay the bills). 

I'll admit, I was extremely lucky when it came to landing my first job out of college, which just so happens to be the same job I hold today.  I started as an intern and about a month before my graduation a position became available that one of my supervisors thought I would be a good fit for.  She encouraged me to apply, I was interviewed a few days later, and hired about 20 minutes after that.  Super easy and definitely NOT the normal process that most people have to go through.  So when it comes to job hunting and interviewing I actually don't have all that much experience.  I've learned about the whole process more so through my job (and my sister) than I have from actual experience.  So when my sister asked me what I would have done had I not had this job waiting for me after graduation, I had to stop and reflect because frankly I'd never given that question much thought. 

What would I have done?  What would I have wanted to do?  I imagine I would have continued to look for a job with the university or another business in Pullman, since my husband already had a full-time job and we weren't planning on moving right away.  If that hadn't panned out I probably would have extended my search to the University of Idaho just eight miles across the border, and if that hadn't worked I probably would have......well, I'm not quite sure.  It's hard to look back and know what you would have done, especially when you're not entirely the same person with the same amount of knowledge and experience (or better yet, lack of) you were/had back then. 

But I do wonder what I would have done if I didn't have this job.  Would I have seriously pursued a career in writing?  Would I have worked hard at making that my full-time career, rather than just a fantasy I continue to harbor on a day-to-day basis?

I know for a fact that I use my job as an excuse for why I don't write as often or as much as I want to.  I spout the same lines out lout and in my head all the time, "I'm tired from work so I don't think I'll write tonight;" "I have so much going on at work I just don't have time to write;" "I'm so stressed right now so it's too hard to clear my mind and focus on my story;" and so on, and so on.  I justify that if I didn't have a job to go to every day I could use some of those eight hours to actually sit at my computer and write to my heart's content.  And it's partly true.  If I could use some of the hours I spend at my job and put them towards writing I would get more done and would get it done more often.  In a perfect world this would be my life.....but it's not.  The fact is I have to work.  We have bills (too many of them), a mortgage, two dogs that are spoiled rotten, and a house that we are constantly remodeling.  We also like to take vacations, and most of the time vacations don't come cheap.  For us, surviving on solely one income just wouldn't cut it.

The struggle I and I'm sure many others face, is being able to do what you love in the midst of the things you have to do.  I don't want my tiredness or my stress from work to be the reason I go sometimes weeks at a time without writing.  I don't want the fact that I spend more hours at work during the day than I do at home to be the reason I don't go down to my office and write when I have the chance.  I have to stop letting myself slack off to wait until things are less busy or for when I have more time.  Honestly, does that ever really happen?

While I don't have a definite answer to my sister's question about what I would have done without a job after graduation, I know I have to stop viewing my necessity to work as an obstacle to my writing.  The fact that I know what I want to do in a perfect world doesn't mean I can't still work toward it just because conditions aren't "perfect" right now.  Am I not just bursting with inspirational/motivational speak right now?

Thank you, Katrina, for a much needed food for thought question, and for helping me get myself re-motivated to tackle the challenge of putting words on a page......or in this instance, a computer screen.