2 posts tagged “career”

I had a pretty amazing interview today, which could result in a high-paying, real adult job. I don't want to talk about it until I know for sure what will happen, but I'm starting to feel like a grown-up (and I kinda like it). Also, today marks the day my student loan balance enters the high 17's, down from 21k. Chipping away at that thing slowly but surely...

Yeah. It was a good day.

Flipping through old photo albums this morning - relics from a time when I had the drive & determination to obsessively catalog my life - I was looking for a photo that might pinpoint the exact moment I lost my ambition. It had to have been sometime after I finished college, when I couldn't find work for a year and instead obsessively cleaned the house and cried all day. I can only imagine where I would be right now had I taken my broken-self and moved to a major city, and started working straight away?

Maybe I would have ended up as burnt out as I am now? Maybe it would have happened faster? Or maybe I would have an amazing, successful career right now?

I was most definitely born with it. From my earliest memories, I recall wanting to make a name for myself - far away from my hometown. I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to do it, but I did have certain benchmarks for myself: I was going to be a published author by 21 and earn a PhD by 30. When did I fall off track?

Over the past 5-years I have considered going back to school. I flirt with the idea, especially when I am dissatisfied with work; I consider throwing myself back into academia and not emerging until I am a doctor of some sort. The problem is, I don't want to accrue more student debt and I am unsure of what one thing I could study that obsessively without blowing my brains out.

Woodworking has been the only thing that I have done that I loved enough to do it regardless of how tired I felt - or sick I got - or how frustrated I was. There were times I would wake up at 3:00 am and not be able to go back to sleep because I was so excited to get back to a project...I wager there is nothing the corporate world could offer that would so awaken my spirit.

But this post isn't about that - it is about losing my mojo. My drive, my ambition. I used to have it regardless of what I was doing - even if it wasn't something I was passionate about. What happened to that? If I had my way right this second - I would be on the couch for the next week in a muumuu, watching 80's movies, getting drunk, and eating chocolate. I would stop shaving and live in a pile of my own filth. I won't do that, but it's what I'm in the mood for right now.

I guess the question isn't when I lost my mojo, but more importantly; how do I get it back?