As I have spoken to some of you about and written about elsewhere (and even written about here, but written about so badly I had to delete it), I am lately finding myself in a bit of an existential crisis. Being 25, I am told it's called a"quarterlife crisis." I think there is some credence to that. Anyway, one of the big hallmarks of this crisis is my continued discouragement with having a job that is not a career path, and having no fricking clue what career path I should be on, if I should be on one at all.
So, being me, I picked up a book. The book is called I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was: How to Discover What You Really Want and How to Get It, and it is by Barbara Sher. I have no idea if it's a good book or not--I picked it up for $1.99 at the Goodwill-but anything is worth a try.
Anyway, the reason I am telling you this: the book contains "exercises" that are supposed to help you worth through this stuff. I am going to do at least some of my exercises here, on the blog. Why? Well, three reasons. Number one, I am a big fat narcissist and I take grim and strange pleasure in sharing my life's minutiae with unsuspecting others across the Internet. Number two, a number of others in my circle, both in real life and online, are having similar issues, and I want to invite them to join me, or at least follow along to see if anything resonates with them. Number three, if I don't have some accountability, I will put the book down as soon as something gets too difficult--this place is some kind of accountability.
So tonight I read the feel-good preface (barf) and Chapter 1. Chapter 1 is entitled "What are you supposed to be doing?" and it deals with the expectations we grow up with. The first exercise is as follows:
Take a piece of paper and jot down the names of everyone in your family and extended family. That is, write down anyone who was important to you when you were growing up, teachers, coaches, neighbors, cousins, older friends.There's more explanation, but you get the general idea. So that's the exercise I'm going to do here. I am not going to specify it by people, because for some reason that, of all things, feels to personal, but I am going to create a general list of what the people around me seemed to want me to do with my life when I was growing up (and even now). The books stresses that it doesn't matter if these aren't the things people actually wanted for me, it only matters what my perceptions are, so I am going to go with that.Under each person's name, write down what they wanted you to do with your life...What did/do they want from you?
What people wanted me to do (and didn't want me to do):
1. Do something with writing. You are a good writer.
2. Do something that involves arguing or convincing people of something. You'd argue with a goddamn stump.
3. Don't do anything athletic, you are a klutz.
4. Don't do anything artistic, you have no artistic talent. Same with music.
5. Make more money than we make, but don't get too concerned about money, that makes you shallow. But make enough money to take care of us when we get old.
6. Don't do anything emasculating.
7. Don't do anything too girly.
8. Get an education.
9. Don't get too much education, it's wasteful to go to school for school's sake.
10. Don't forget to have a baby.
11. Do something competitive--you are an overachiever.
12. Work very hard.
13. Move to a city, you are not a country person.
14. Don't move too far away.
15. Don't do anything touchy-feely, you aren't a sensitive type.
16. Do something that will make you famous.
17. Don't do anything too important, we don't want you getting uppity.
18. Don't do anything too mainstream, you have always been eccentric.
19. Don't get too eccentric.
20. Don't do anything that is embarrassing to country people, like law or politics.
As the book points out, there is no way I could do all of those things simultaneously, even if I wanted to (which, of course, I don't, because some of them are outdated, some were always wrong, and some are just patently ridiculous). That's the first thing I'm supposed to realize. OK, got it. So far, so good.
The next exercise I am not going to do tonight, because I don't have time, but it's to draw a picture incorporating everything everyone wants/wanted you to be. They suggest collage form, so of course I'm excited. Hopefully I will get to that in the next couple of days. If it doesn't suck, I'll take a digital pic and post it.
In the meantime, my family are really not as bad as I've made them sound these past couple of days. I swear, they're not.
Comments (6)
Take it easy.. I'm 49 and deal with life as it comes...
Posted by steve | June 16, 2005 4:30 AM
Um, OK.
Posted by Grace | June 16, 2005 8:58 AM
Simon made a laughing noise!
Posted by simonmaxhill | June 19, 2005 5:23 AM
I'll be eager to see what you think of this book. I read "What I am supposed to do with my life" half-way, then listened to the audio book. And the title of "What color is your parachute?" was just too ridiculous--I couldn't pick it up. Actually, would it be helpful to you if some other quarterlife crisis friends worked through this at the same time, or would it be more useful to you to work on it on your own...
Posted by Scand79 | June 20, 2005 11:24 AM
I'd love to have others work through it with me. I am going to read another chapter in the book tonight, but I sort of feel good about it so far. Making the collage helped.
Posted by Grace | June 20, 2005 1:29 PM
Cool. I'm in Minnesota at the moment, but when I get back, I'll try to track down a copy of it, and maybe you'd have someone to discuss it with. Your collage was awesome, btw. You've always been excellent at making them, and this one was really cool and seemed to be a good process for you, too.
Posted by Scand79 | June 21, 2005 1:27 PM