The context

I’ve had a goal for the past 18 years of my life: an education. I needed no answer to “what do you do?” – it was assumed, I learned. Full-time student defined everything for me. Where I went to school, who I went to school with, what I majored in – those were definitions of me. For the first time in my life, I feel completely undefined.

It’s difficult to identify who you are when your context is missing, and with no answers to the new questions in my life I have no idea how to be me. I know where I want to be: a fulfilling career, a subsequent balanced, color-coded budget to get us off the education debt train and on to the mortgage express . . . but the transition is uglier than I envisioned.

As a student, graduation was THE goal. After which, of course, I would slip into a job that was education relevant and personally fulfilling. It was to be the final pay-off for my schooling, which I—ironically—still have to pay off. Now, after five months of scrolling up and down the standard and equally useless job-promising search sites, my reward for four years of hard work really only seems to be my keyboard-induced carpal tunnel and an exercise-immune ass, courtesy of Taco Bell.

I am aware of my short-sightedness, but the frustration of negative responses, and really, no responses at all starts to turn me a little sour. I worked hard to get a leg up, but I still feel just as handicapped as the rest of the 14.6 million people looking for work, college degree or not. I may be a pessimist, but I know I’m not the only one frustrated—you know, out of millions of people and all.

I had a conversation with a gentleman at an employment agency the other day, during which we discussed the job market, a frustration he assists hundreds of people with daily. He mentioned that the agency “was optimistic – it’s really the only thing we can be.” And this is what I’m realizing. Frustration is allowed, but pouting gets you nowhere – optimism will get me through the 13 applications I plan on for the day.