State of the union
It wasn’t my intention, but my last blog post was six months ago.
To give you a better understanding of why I have trouble making regular blog posts— it’s hard to know what to write about, perhaps especially as someone with an anxiety disorder. Will prospective or current employers be unhappy with my blog if they see it, resulting in some negative consequence for me? What about the institutions I’m involved with? I guess ultimately I’m afraid of judgment, but so is everyone. I write from the heart, and it’s always going to be that way.
But now I think y’all are due for a little life update, so here goes: Done with Amazon. I won’t detail everything in this blog post but rest assured that my first collection of poetry will include a couple of poems alluding to my negative experience there. Maybe I can find some positive, too. Now, I am contracted as an English tutor at a public school and due to their need I’m going to be able to start as an English teacher with a provisional teaching license next school year. Going to bridge the gap this summer with a significantly reduced hourly job as an instructor at a summer camp. And, truthfully, I’ve been DoorDashing and will possibly continue to do so over the summer. I’ve also started pet-sitting through Rover which is nice if I can get more clients.
Given all this, I want to take a moment to air my grievances. The fact that I am a writer and an editor and advertise my services on a website *I* made—yes, this one—but I cannot for the life of me get any clients for related services. Instead I am left to odd-job contract work where all my expensive education matters not. Anyone can sign up for these things. Although the summer instructor job requires experience teaching (which requires a degree) and pays little comparatively. Why is the world this way?
Certainly not a fan of capitalism, make no mistake, but I have little desire to work in politics and try to make change at the high-level. Instead, I’d prefer to improve people’s lives with my art and service, but it’s difficult to do so when there are 8 billion people, many of whom are highly educated, and I cannot seem to attract anyone to my particular capabilities.
I want to take a more free-flowing approach to life. I want to get outside more and connect with nature— I know that’s helpful all around. I want to connect with people. I want to help others. Yet the anxious mindset seems always present, where I’m thinking about how I can maximize my Roth IRA to have the perfect amount of money when I am 59.5 years old.
I think this would seem like a STEM mind to a lot of people, while the artistic mind would be without direction, spontaneous, no planning of the future. Those stereotypes, like all others, are unhelpful. I am a combination of things. I have a wide variety of interests and skills, and I wish the world was better at embracing that instead of insisting that we pick one thing to study and have a career in for the rest of our lives. Even though I did that and graduated top of my class, it’s so difficult to get a job nowadays, as if I worked so hard for my straight-A record for nothing. Certainly feels like my generation has been left in the dust. Maybe, reader, you’d be surprised how many minimum-wage or hourly workers have 4-year degrees or higher.
