Change as we all know it is ultimately unavoidable, but as I’ve come to learn during my recent job hunt, it doesn’t always come quickly.
After graduating from the University of Washington in June 2009, I expected big changes to occur in my life rapidly. I imagined the perfect post-college dream. I had it all planned out. I’d graduate. I’d get a fantastic job. I’d be important. I’d be successful. And most importantly of all, I’d have money. Life unfortunately had other plans for me.
I graduated but I didn’t find a job and I found myself occasionally strapped for cash do to the sporadic paid internship work that I did shortly after I finished school. The change that I sought didn’t come at the rapid pace that I was expecting. It came at a crawl.
At first this snail’s pace of change frustrated me but as it carried on for over a year, I began to quickly appreciate the smaller aspects of life that I would have missed if I had went speeding by. In my “spare time”, I volunteered with my national fraternity, dabbled in various industries, created a network of passionate working professionals, explored my city more frequently, and reconnected with friends that I had fallen out of touch with. All of these experiences and more helped me stop and enjoy the good things in life; it let me see that work isn’t life. No, it’s just a mere component among many others that make a happy existence.
Now as I approach the close of my unemployment, I can honestly say that if I could go back and change everything, I would leave it all the same. Change as I’ve learned is sometimes unexpected and develops on micro level that can’t be appreciated without time and the right perspective. After all, very few great things are put together in a mere day. Like a great story, life requires the right amount of build-up and suspense to make it interesting.
So yet another chapter of my life comes to a close. My prolonged post-graduate job search has concluded. I now eagerly look forward to the beginning of the next chapter of my life at Nyhus Communications and the start of my “adult life.” I’ve waited a long time to say this, “It’s time for work!”