There is perhaps no time more terrifying or exciting than the first two months after graduating from college. If you don't opt directly for higher education, this is the first time in your life that you are really in charge of your path. And that, frankly, is scary as hell.
That's why I thought I was the luckiest person in the world when I found my dream job before I even got graduated. After a grueling interview that lasted several months, I was accepted into a community organization training program. I was going to help people. I was going to make a real change locally. I was going to make a difference . It seemed like all the hard work I had put in over the past four years was going to pay off.
My last few months in Chicago were spent saying goodbye, packing my bags, and looking forward to the next big step in my life. While my friends continued to look for work, I headed to a new place – glamorous Toledo, Ohio – to start my dream job.
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In my mind, this wasn't just a job, it was truly the beginning of my greatest goal. I had always seen myself as someone who wanted to fight against injustice. I grew up with a mother who never had health insurance or a bank account. We spent my childhood moving whenever she couldn't pay the rent or her friends got tired of us sleeping on their couch or in their attic. She did her best, but everything was difficult. I wanted to grow up to work helping people like her. To defend those who could not defend themselves. This job was the beginning of this life for me. You just had to go up from here, right? I had done it.
Flash-forward four short weeks when I began to realize that this job was not all that I had been promised. I was working with another person who, like me, had just graduated from college and was ready to save the world. But we didn't know what we were doing. And we had no direction. We were on the ground in the middle of nowhere with no direction or support.
Not only had I chosen the wrong job, but I felt like I had chosen the wrong dream . The wrong lens.
Fast forward to when my car was broken into at a church I was working with in the middle of the day.
Flash forward to when someone was shot in my yard while running from a police officer .
Fast forward to me sitting in what they called our office, trying to make sense of what I had done. I uprooted my life. I left Chicago, a place I called home for almost five years. I left my friends. I left my mentors. I left behind people who could have helped me grow and find a career that really worked, only to have the chance of a dream falling apart around me after less than two months.
Six weeks after arriving, I began packing my life for the second time to head to Charlotte, North Carolina to move in with my recently relocated parents. Defeat. Failure. Screw up . I repeated those words over and over in my head. Not only had I chosen the wrong job, but I felt like I had chosen the wrong dream . The wrong goal. I didn't know what was coming next. I couldn't think past all the bad decisions I had made to get to this place. I was starting over at 22, and it sucked.
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But today, six years later, I'm sitting in a cafe in Charlotte overlooking the skyline. I am an entirely different person than the one who packed her life in a PT Cruiser and cried from Ohio to North Carolina, screaming Alanis Morissette and mourning her seemingly lost dreams.
You will find a new dream and a new life. And you might just be surprised at what you can do with it.
My career is not at all what I thought it would be, that's still true. I work for a credit company, but despite working in an industry I hadn't anticipated, I've found a company that makes me want to come to work every day. And I found a new list of criteria for my dream job:money to pay my bills and pay off my debt, enough freedom and time off to travel, flexibility and the ability to take the time to do the things I enjoy outside of work.
I haven't been helping people the way I thought I would throughout my career, but now I have time to volunteer. I work in a yoga studio which has become a second home for me. I surround myself with people who encourage me to grow and learn every day. I write. I found a home in Charlotte that makes my life whole and wonderful.
The dreams I had when I graduated from college are not the dreams I have now. A part of me will always wonder what might have been if I had stayed in Chicago. Where would I be? What would my life be like? Would I have gone back to school? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
What I do know is that leaving that job was the best decision I ever made. Recognizing that the path you start on, the dream you start with, is not what it turned out to be – it's not easy. To start over, to admit defeat, to reassess major life choices. But if you can do it, you will find a new dream and a new life. And you might just be surprised at what you can do with it.
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