Reality vs. Fantasy

"If you can't change it [your situation], change the way you think about it."
-Maya Angelou

"The grass is always greener on the other side."

Nearly six months later I find myself at crossroads yet again. Job prospects have thinned out and I am nursing an 8:30 to 5:30 temp position in the Financial District. Beyond the free coffee, gourmet food, and splendid sunset in Battery Park, I am exhausted. I have accumulated nearly a month's worth of insufficient sleep. My parents are so proud of me that I have finally found a stable job (stable until I pass my probationary period in September), but I reluctantly get dressed to brush sleeves with suit-clad businessmen saying little to nothing on their way to work. There are many voices clouding my genuine opinion and critique of where I stand. These many voices exacerbate my existential crisis: Should I pursue something that I am interested in and heavily invested in, or work a position that guarantees me financial stability? I look toward both ends of the spectrum because I don't believe there's ever anything in the middle, hence I relegate moderation to fantasy.

The question is How can I be creatively fulfilled? I spend over forty hours each week working, therefore I must enjoy what I do. It's simply pointless to do something that I am not emotionally invested in. Finance is still a foreign subject to me; although I rubbed elbows with Baruch students, I am far from being interested in numbers and stocks and savings. Does leaving mean quitting in life? Does it mean that I cannot "suck up" for the time being? Does it mean that I cannot see the bigger picture? Am I always going to bail out of issues as unsatisfactory as this one? Am I a quitter? This is the bigger question apprehending me at the moment.

My mom said that "Ju gung hai gum la, nee num hai nee yut gor yun dew gong?" This means "This is what working is like, you think you're the only one who works and goes through this?" She's obviously equating work with survival. I, on the other hand, equate life and survival with chasing my fantastical passions and "interests." My Dad eggs Mom on by chastising me, "Nai haw nee ko gong ah? Nee doo lok hui mai jung yee la." This means "Who says you have a choice? You keep working at it and sooner or later you'll be interested in it." Now my question is: Do you develop an interest in something, or do you find something you're already interested in? It has to happen both ways, but who said that the person who works the longest at an immensely boring activity will ultimately make it his passion? Who can guarantee this? Who can establish this logic firmly? No one. Does my indifference and disinterest make me a quitter? Let's say I sew clothes day in and day out, does my boredom with sewing indicate that I am ready to quit and move onto something else, or does it mean that I haven't put in enough hours and sweat into sewing? Should I keep sewing, and ten years down the line I'll be a professional sewer and fashion designer? Perhaps my logic was established when I refused to go watch a baseball game with Shawn. He hounded me, "How can you say you hate baseball when you haven't even gone to a single game?!" How does one immediately turn something away if he has never tried it? That confounds me because I seem to biased one way or another. And I can guarantee that we are all stubborn and close-minded in one way or another.

Does my career allow me to flourish creatively, or am I slowly succumbing to financial dependence, a passive trail of inner self-loathing and self-denial? Am I creatively fulfilled? Am I learning new things at work? These questions beg a similar question upon graduating: What did you learn from your alma mater? Is it what you make of it, or is it really what the school bestowed on you? If "life is what you make of it," then I need to extrapolate lessons and advice from instructors at my college. If that's the direction we take to assess an institution or experiences in our lives, then we need to make the most of every situation we are involved in. Can I instill creativity in my position? Can I make my workplace a little more cheerful? Can I pretend that I am joyful? These questions are pretentious at the outset, but they continue to plague me every morning I wake up to get dressed and fill up my briefcase.

This is always the case: I find work and I beg to retrieve my social life, but when I'm jobless and helplessly job-hunting, there are no open positions. So when the opportunity presents itself I pounce on it and invest in it 105%, but slowly my passion and interests creep up and whisper to me that I've lied to myself the whole time. Now I want to bring back my passions and exercise my creativity. But this can't make money; this is not profitable. Perhaps I'm not thinking outside the box, or maybe I'm led by the financial rewards. In this case I am elevated in social status. When I tell people that I work in Wall Street they immediately assume that I am affluent, the same way that people's ears and lips perk when someone says he/she graduated from an ivy league. The social status and privilege attached to a name is what gives a person singular weight. And sometimes the assumption carries a conversation so far into artificial premises that the ones implicated are nothing but self-fulfilled fools seeking pity and rolling around in nothing but poverty.

It's already July; I might as well be grateful for what I have. I really should devote 105% into everything I do. Besides things could be worse; I could still be working part time and squandering time at pointless social networking events under the guise of socialpreneur, when in reality, I am simply a poor person trying to fit into high society.

Always agitate, never idle.