So my master plan for becoming someone to envy after my divorce isn't working out all that well.
I have levels of ideal floating about in my skull. There's the ultimate ideal (that goes without saying, right?) and then there are a couple levels of ideal that are lower than the ultimate but still very desirable. There are even a couple levels below that where I'd be content. Even my ultimate ideal isn't being ridiculously rich and bored. I tried a taste of that in Las Vegas with X and -- while fun -- it wouldn't be my cup of tea over the long haul. Err....I don't think so, anyway. Hee!
Satisfaction is really my goal. Security. I imagined getting a job that would put me making twice what I'm making now. That still wouldn't very be much but I could move out and live on my own. I could live in a style that, while not luxurious, would be relatively comfortable. Too me, comfortable means traveling a few times a year and seeing the world. As I most likely have more birthdays behind me than in front of me, this is something I'd like to do.
So I thought, what better way to better myself than to go back to school? I thought giving myself some new and updated skills would do the trick. But it hasn't. Even before the recent economic troubles, it hadn't. I've discovered that the skills themselves weren't as relevant as experience is. I know that's not first page news, but I'd hoped -- apparently in vain -- that my decades of experience in other fields would make me a better "bet" than a fledgling graduate right out of college. Looks like in order to really utilize my new skills I have to take a entry level job in the field making $3 less an hour than I currently make. I simply can't do that. I am barely squeaking by as it is and that's WITH a roommate.
Now I'm $4k MORE in debt than I was when I exited my marriage and in no better position. It's frustrating to say the least.
Still, I'm not suffering and I'm not lacking food on the table or a roof over my head. My roommate is really not all that difficult -- in fact he's one of the better ones I've had over the years -- and I am guardedly optimistic that whatever company I eventually end up with will see that the updated skills I've cultivated would be beneficial and at that juncture I'll be compensated for them. I want to think that I haven't done the schooling in vain.
It's funny, though. I'm pursuing other avenues -- contract positions and part-time writing jobs and things I haven't done since college. I was a journalist back then. Who knows....maybe my chops aren't completely gone but are just a bit dusty.
It made me think, though, about happiness. Knowing what you want and going for it with a single-minded determination. That's something I've rarely been able to maintain because I'm much too interested in experiencing all that I can before I shuffle off this mortal coil. While reading one day I came across a blog (http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/01/why-career-planning-is-time-wasted.php) with an article about why career planning is a waste of time and I pondered this quote about miswanting in particular:
"We are poor at predicting what will make us happy in the future."The idea of making mistakes about what we might want in the future has been termed 'miswanting' by Gilbert and Wilson (2000). They point to a range of studies finding we are poor at predicting what will make us happy in the future....Over time we learn, whether implicitly or explicitly, that we are not that good at predicting the future.
"This means your future self is probably a stranger to you. And, on some level, you know it. That's why it might be hard for an 18 year old to choose their career, but it's a damn sight harder for someone in midlife when limitations have been learnt. This might seem like just another way of saying that people get more cautious as they get older, but it is more than that. It's actually saying that it's not caution that's increasing with age, but implicit self-knowledge. People begin to understand that the future holds vanishingly few certainties, even for those things that would seem to be under our most direct control, like our sandwich preferences."
I DO know and have always known that what I want changes over time. I've never made really solid long-term goals because of that knowledge. I've always thought that made me wishy-washy. Hm. Perhaps it simply means that I'm a lot more self-aware and knowledgeable about myself than the average soul?
Well, it's a great justification anyway. :)
((Song: "Money/That's What I Want" by the Beatles. Lyrics here:
http://www.stevesbeatles.com/songs/money.asp ))
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