I am a hippie no matter how I try to shake my upbringing. I don't care so much about money, which is causing some issues; I don't care about moving up the corporate ladder, which has some of my friends and family frowning and wagging their fingers at me; I don't want the cookie-cutter-have-to-settle-no-room-for-growth-live-inside-the-box-life. All I really want is to be happy, to be loved, to be just me.
So what is wrong with having dreams and wanting to realize them? I feel like I have done something sinister by planning for a coffee house. It isn't like I have not been applying every day for just about any job, even those that a trained monkey could do, but for some reason, having a degree or two makes me less desirable than that trained monkey. Somehow being an educator in higher education makes me hard to control. My qualifications do not fit into the job description. Huh? I am a professor of English, yet my qualifications preclude me from filing, creating reports and licking stamps. Really?
I want to put down on my application that I have lived the last eleven years in a commune or a nunnery or that I have never worked a day in my life because I was "finding myself." I think I might get a call then. Not to say that I have not been called, because I have, but the jobs are all corporate, VP of Customer Relations, Coordinator of Benefits, and so on. I dress the part, I look great on paper too, but somehow I am unable to speak "dollar signs and margin calls." Why can't I get with the program and just accept stock options, 401K matching, 12 hour work days and no real life? Because I have the hippie mentality. I am an idealist. I want what is real.
What is real, you ask? If you have to ask then I probably could spend all day trying to explain it to you. Real is knowing who your friends are. Really knowing them. Real is not thinking that you have to settle. Real is having the courage to take chances and to go after what you want in life. Real is knowing that true happiness comes after a long journey; it sneaks up on you when you least expect it, and you have to be willing to meet it head on.
So here I am, keepin' it real.
So what is wrong with having dreams and wanting to realize them? I feel like I have done something sinister by planning for a coffee house. It isn't like I have not been applying every day for just about any job, even those that a trained monkey could do, but for some reason, having a degree or two makes me less desirable than that trained monkey. Somehow being an educator in higher education makes me hard to control. My qualifications do not fit into the job description. Huh? I am a professor of English, yet my qualifications preclude me from filing, creating reports and licking stamps. Really?
I want to put down on my application that I have lived the last eleven years in a commune or a nunnery or that I have never worked a day in my life because I was "finding myself." I think I might get a call then. Not to say that I have not been called, because I have, but the jobs are all corporate, VP of Customer Relations, Coordinator of Benefits, and so on. I dress the part, I look great on paper too, but somehow I am unable to speak "dollar signs and margin calls." Why can't I get with the program and just accept stock options, 401K matching, 12 hour work days and no real life? Because I have the hippie mentality. I am an idealist. I want what is real.
What is real, you ask? If you have to ask then I probably could spend all day trying to explain it to you. Real is knowing who your friends are. Really knowing them. Real is not thinking that you have to settle. Real is having the courage to take chances and to go after what you want in life. Real is knowing that true happiness comes after a long journey; it sneaks up on you when you least expect it, and you have to be willing to meet it head on.
So here I am, keepin' it real.
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