dead end job

(c) lovethispic.com

To pay the rent and stop myself from going completely insane from boredom and demotivation, I started working as a sales assistant at a media franchise. It was surprisingly hard to get a job, and though I am grateful to be employed and for the mental stimulation and income, I am also deeply frustrated.

This is a dead end job for me. I work full time, and most of my physical energy is drained by the daily grind and annoyances of lazy colleagues and staff politics. I like to work hard and I thrive in environments when I can apply myself and get on with the task at hand. But the truth is, I don’t want to be stacking shelves and labelling DVDs forever. I don’t want to be on tills and cashing up indefinitely, being treated like an idiot for making insignificant mistakes. I want to be a writer and pursue my passion.

(c) pixgood.com

I guess everyone who works full time to pay bills and tries to pursue a dream on the side faces similar struggles. After a long and arduous day at work, I don’t have the energy to do coursework for my magazine journalism qualification. When I have days off, the first thing I want to do is be a couch potato and the last thing I want to do is study and push myself into whipping out content prolifically. Occasionally, not as often as I wish, I manage to write a blog post.

But this is what I want to do with my life. I want to be a full time writer. I want to be able to drop everything and do work experience at magazines, without having to worry about my job and getting permission to take annual leave. I want the bulk of my energy to be spent trying to make a career in something that I actually care about and feel gifted in. I don’t want to be stuck where I am now, wondering why and how I ended up here.

(c) missjayloves.com

I know that much of real life is about compromise. I need income to support myself and I don’t want to be unemployed or dependent. I don’t want to be stuck feeling like my life has no structure, routine or purpose. But maybe it is time to make some changes.

I am 26 years old, and the clock is ticking. At the moment the clock is ticking relatively slowly, but every day is a day that passes me by. I don’t want to waste my life. I don’t want to waste my energy on a meaningless job that I feel is not a good use of my potential.

Today I have been thinking that I need to pursue my writing career with more passion and focus. Maybe some things need to give way so that I can fight for the life that I want. Maybe I need to drop my hours in this job which is going nowhere, spend more time writing, and get my priorities clear.

Maybe I need to learn not to settle for the trappings of 9-5, for my idea of reality’s penance.

Today I realised that I need to fight for my dreams, and I need to start now.

‘go confidently in the direction of your dreams’

(c) flickr.com

For a long time, I looked out into the future and all I saw was grey. An endless nothingness, bleak and dark. I looked into my life and I thought, ‘This is it.’

I didn’t understand it, because on paper I had a great life. It was the middle class dream. I was 26 and married, financially stable, with a house and a dog. No 2.4 children but almost a white picket fence.  I thought it was the depression that made me feel hopeless about my life, longing for death every day. It’s not nice to admit it, but I did. I thought things would never change. That this was all life had to offer.

It wasn’t all bad. There were great things, moments of joy and love. But the truth is that I wanted to die. I didn’t think life was worth living. At any given moment, if you had asked me, I would have told you that I would have preferred death over life.

And that is sad.

I say all this because the truth is, I don’t feel this way anymore.

I want to live. I look out into the future and some days, I am full of anxiety and worry. I worry about finances. I worry about work. I worry about myself. Some days I wonder how I will bear it all, and part of me thinks that it would be easier if my life just stopped.

But for the most part, I want to live. For the most part, if you asked me at any given moment if I would choose life or death, I would choose life.

You see, I feel alive now. I look out into my future and I see possibilities and opportunities. I am 26 and I have at least 50 years ahead of me to try, fail, explore, love, and experience life in all its crazy chaos. I have at least 50 years ahead of me to be broken down and built up again.

This is no small thing for me.

(c) mkalty.com

I have spent most of my life longing for death, dreading the future, and hating myself. And now I feel like my life is starting again. As though everything I had before has been burned to the ground, and I can start from scratch.

This kind of freedom is terrifying and yet so liberating.

I can choose what I want to do now. I can be honest about who I am, without fear of how it affects others, without feeling the need to make myself smaller so others can stand tall. I can be me.

I know what my dreams are now and I am pursuing them. I am studying something that I am passionate about and working towards the life that I want. I am in love.

Most importantly, I am myself. Unreservedly and unapologetically.

And this is what matters most.