What do you want to do?

So, I guess we all start with the obvious question: What do you want to do? Well, isn't that the dumbest question ever.  This might be pessimistic but I don’t think what I want to do is on the table.  Not unless I can find a job that lets me travel the world, eat at the best restaurants, drink all sorts of drinks and write at my leisure.  

Coming from a liberal arts college where the motto is learn everything you want to, not simply learn what this career path needs you to learn, I have no idea what my path is.  I learned so much in college that I still feel like the world is wide open to me.  Furthermore, I feel like I've grown in so many different ways during the four years I was in college that there is no singular thing I want to do. 

Ugh, back to the question at hand. What do I want to do?

Well, my real love is writing. I’d love to be able to write stories, articles, and columns and so on for the rest of my days.  I know it would take some time to work my way up to doing anything substantial, but I think it would be a thrilling way to make a living.

I would also love to read for a living, being an editor or any job where I would be able to make comments on someone else’s work before it goes out to be published would also be ideal.

I know I have many skills that would help me in any career.  I know how to use Microsoft office, Social Media; I like to think I know how to sell ideas to people and how to get people to care about. Everything there seems to point me towards advertising, sales, marketing, or some other office work.

More recently and that is to say after working for YMCA Green Bay’s Camp U-Nah-Li-Ah, I love the idea of working outside, being outside. Working for a non-profit or a job where I get to be outside more seems very appealing. 

Now, because I think this question is ambiguous and downright stupid, I think I should tell you the answer to a much better question for today’s job market situation.  Maybe someday in the past you were able to walk right into a job and say I want to do this and they’d give it to you, but today those looking for a job have to be more practical.  We have to ask ourselves what I am willing to do OR what am I not willing to do to support myself.

I could try to be funny and say I’d sell my body for money, but anyone who knows me knows that wouldn't make me a dime.  So in all honesty, what I won’t do is go back to fast food.  I know I could walk in and be a manager but I refuse to put myself in a position where I’ll hate myself for the rest of my life.  I’ll be a trash man, a mailman, I’ll work retail but I refuse to work in fast food ever again.  I worked at a Culver's restaurant while I was in High School and I was seriously just done with it, the hours sucked, I ate the food all the time, the managers were truly awful people, and I became such an angry person while I worked there.

As I've been writing this, I cannot help but think that I am thinking about this the wrong way. Maybe there isn't such a divide in the two ways of thinking.  The two questions certainly have merit. The former has everything to do with what you aspire to become. While the later has everything to do with how you want to get there.  I hope that you can see some need for these questions as I have.

Please leave a comment, question, or concern for me to answer.  Thanks for reading and I’ll write again soon.