Social Isolation Diaries #5

My original plan after graduation was to be a trekking guide in Guatemala for some amount of time over the summer and then figure things out from there. I guess this plan wasn’t exactly foolproof, but I was definitely looking forward to the experience.

Obviously Coronavirus disrupted those plans, seeing as international travel is unlikely to be safe for at least the next few months. This left me with nothing to do but look for some sort of similar experience in the US. 

I’ve been applying to jobs non-stop for the past few days to alleviate some of my anxiety about the future. I figure if I apply for enough opportunities that I’m under-qualified for, eventually someone is bound to hire me.

How does it make sense to require years of experience for an entry level job?

I guess I could have accrued this experience through internships in college, but I’ve changed my mind so many times about the future that none of the positions I’ve had in the past really qualify as experience for the positions I’m interested in.

It’s hard for me to make plans for the future because my obsessions vary so wildly that I can’t even keep up with them. I’ve changed my mind about the future so many times that I can’t remember who knows what.

Every few months throughout college, I came to some great realization about the career I was destined for, just to completely change my mind a few months later when I realized that I was only over-romanticizing a particular field. And every time, part of my ego died and I had an identity crisis.

It feels like all of the really cool jobs require 25+ years of experience and  I don’t know if I could dedicate an entire chunk of lifetime to get some job that maybe I’ll like when I’m 47 years old. 

I guess part of growing up is accepting the fact that you don’t ever truly know what the future may hold, and holding on too tightly to my ego is really just another way of resisting inevitable change.

I mean, does it really matter if I change my mind? Do I need to stay on one path forever and follow this trajectory indefinitely? I guess as the years progress the story of my life will begin to unfold and I’ll get answers to these questions. Or maybe the answers won’t really matter and I’ll have different questions that plague my mind. 

Does that make me the author or only a character? Can I write my future or does the story progress without my knowledge or further consent? A little bit of both?

I’ve realized how little of life is really in my control and that, ultimately, the external forces have more say in what happens in my life than I do. 

Cheers to another day trapped in the house as we wait for the government to give us permission to leave.