Searching for a Sense of Purpose: Global Pandemic Edition

No one tells you how hard it is. There's no warning sign that pops up like an ad in your brain that reads You did it! Now be prepared to spend the next several months with your eyes glued to your laptop searching every nook and cranny of Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and countless remote job finder websites, stress crying, and watching your already dwindling savings account take a massive hit. Your eyes begin to lose track of how many random jobs you've applied for so you have to write them all down on a piece of notebook paper, and in a matter of less than two weeks you've filled up both sides. Names of companies and businesses blur together and you're dizzy from trying to keep up.

No one tells you that the amount of experience you might have probably won't cut it. Requirements: 5+ years of experience. It's understandable that some job openings might require a more seasoned professional, but sometimes it should just be enough to be eager and willing to learn on the job. People don't have time to train you, they need you to already know what you're doing as soon as you're hired. It's an endless cycle of well how will I be able to have the required experience for a job if no one else will hire me and allow me to gain any experience?

We are raised to believe that our worth lies in our careers, that every fiber of our being is made to work 9 to 5 shifts until our bodies can no longer handle the weight of that work. So even though the economy is tanking, we are still expected to find not only a job post-graduation that we adore, but one that pays the bills, one that is "acceptable", one that coincides with whatever we majored in at college. From the age of seventeen, we are expected to figure out our entire lives based on a future career. As kids, we are expected to go to a university, study hard, -but not too hard, you should still have a well-rounded college experience while you're there- get a degree in something that will be "useful", -what are you planning on doing with an English major? Like, what kind of job would that get you?- but you should also take classes in areas that interest you. The idea that young adults are just supposed to be able to handle all of these decisions, decisions that will heavily impact their futures, is astronomically absurd.

And what happens when you aren't able to secure a well-paying job right away? Your vengeful pal Student Loan Debt is only a few steps behind you, breathing down your neck and demanding his money back. You've almost run out of the allotted time he's so graciously given you, what will you tell him? You should be grateful for him, after all he did allow you to get a higher education. It's not his fault you couldn't afford to pay for school on your own because it costs an insane amount of money, and had to then borrow the money in order to get that degree. You should be thanking him, right? Personifying student loan debt and making it feel more like a creepy loan shark rather than an actual problem that millions of Americans face only works as a coping mechanism for a short amount of time. Soon you won't be able to make a joke out of it, soon you'll have to deal with it.

For those of you who are lucky enough to have found a career in your early twenties, one that you also happen to enjoy, this is not a rant that is meant to berate you or make you feel bad about having a genuine desire to work. When we find something we love doing that also pays the bills, it's only natural that we would want to do that job. It needs to be said, however, that the society in which we live is cultivated in a way that punishes those of us who haven't been given a shot, those of us who haven't found their path quite yet, or those of us who just have no idea what their path even is. Existence here on good ol' planet Earth is so fickle, constantly changing and shifting directions, and it's okay if you haven't figured out the whole career thing yet. Being in your twenties should be about going on as many adventures as you can, eating good food with good friends, and making enough mistakes to fill up an entire spiral notebook -college ruled, of course. We feel the pressure of going from thirteen or more years of school immediately into the workforce, and I'd like everyone to join me in saying I'm good for now, I have plenty of time to figure it out.