hombros - iPod Touch : November 2010

I've been feeling very.....unsettled lately. I read books about finding your purpose in life, finding that one thing that lights you up and brings you alive. I heard a quote the other day--"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive." I love the quote, but with all due respect to the author, it's just not that easy. I know what makes me come alive: youth in agriculture, the FFA, painting, event planning. Yet getting a job in any of these have, what seems like, unsurmountable obstacles that I haven't been able to get past. Ag job after ag job comes open and I apply. And I'm always given the "You're great, but we went with someone better" speech. Okay, maybe not that harsh, but it always feels that way whenever you're on the receiving end of that message. I try to convey in my interviews that I have passion, drive, energy--everything I think a successful employee needs. But it seems that the job always goes to someone older, more experienced, with more connections. And I am left, yet again, to wonder how I'm supposed to get a job in the field I majored in. Did I make a mistake in my beginning college advising session? I feel like my major should have come with a warning label: "You're going to graduate college and feel invinceable, but this won't last. You'll be 2 years out of graduation, still looking for that mythical "perfect" job." Don't get me wrong, I'm not naive. I knew that I wasn't going to find "the job" as soon as I graduated college, but I thought I would at least get an entry level agriculture job and eventually be able to move my way up the ladder. But with every interview I have, the more discouraged I become. I wonder if I should give up on the agriculture idea all together, or at least until the economy picks up a little. So I go to my second passion: painting and creativity. As most of you know, I have a job on the side where I paint a variety of different things. When I've had a discouraging day, I think, "Is this something I could be doing as a career??" Then the reality hits: what if I fail? what if I don't make enough money? how would I get good health insurance? what about benefits that I would get from a normal 9-5 job? I say that I'd like a job that I feel passionate about, despite what the paycheck is, but the reality is a little different. Dreams and passion don't necessarily pay the bills. And how would I promote my business to be successful enough to make up for the paycheck that I would normally be getting? I can't afford to open a shop as of right now, as much as I'd love to do something like that. I have my "daydreaming days" where I think about opening my own craft store and offer event planning services. I think about days filled with handpainted signs and planning Disney-themed birthday parties and elegant weddings. I guess instead of focusing on the things I don't have, I need to find the good in the situation that I'm in. Maybe God is keeping me in my current job to teach me something....as hard as that lesson may be to understand. Rick Warren wrote in his book "The Purpose Drive Life" that "If you're alive, there's a purpose to your life." While I don't think my current situation is my purpose in life, I do think that there's a purpose to why I'm there. And maybe I'm not meant to know that purpose. Maybe I'm supposed to suck it up until God puts something better in front of me. So I guess my daydreams will have to do for now. At least until I figure a way to find the things that make me come alive into a full time job.