There are days I like my job - days where the people I cross paths with bring me joy. And then there are days like today. Days like today are the bane of my existence. I spend countless hours standing in front of a folding machine. The work itself doesn't actually bother me that much. Monotonous labor is a wonderful opportunity for deep, rich thinking. Rarely, however, do I pull my brain in that direction while folding the church newsletter. I feel like I relate more to Karl Marx' assessment of the human condition during the Industrial Revolution - that I am becoming one with the machine and alienated from my humanity. Ok, so that's a slight exaggeration.I am considering full-time school again. I am considering quitting my job so that I can spend time going after the things I actually want . The practical side of me says, "No, Richelle, you can't quit your job! You need that money to pay for rent, food and other necessities! You might as well be making money while you're still figuring out what you want to do with your life" And the dreamer in me says, "Just quit. It will all work out. You have to be willing to take risks in this life. Do it now or never!!!"
Reality is somewhere in between. I have absolutely ZERO desire to move back in with either one of my parents in order to save money or to move back to Spokane - and I LOVE Portland. It is, I think, one of the most exciting, wonderful, beautiful, and quirky places in the world. It is a fantastic place to be at this point in my life.
What do I want to do? So far these are the options I've considered:
1. Go to grad school for Landscape Architecture in order to be either an a) licensed landscape architect, b) urban/green space planner. This would mean I would eventually join a landscape architecture firm, work for a public agency, or start my own business.
2. Work in a nursery
3. Go through the landscape technology program at PCC (approx. 1/10 the cost of graduate school), become a licensed landscape contractor and then move in the direction of doing more design work and less construction installation - and focus on smaller-scale, residential landscape design
What do I still need to figure out?
1. What kind of landscape architecture do I want to do? (i.e. small or large scale/residential or commercial/industrial/public projects)
2. Do I really want to be a landscape architect, or do I want to be a landscape designer?
3. Do I want to work closely with plants or with drawing utensils and construction documents?
4. If I go to grad school, what do I want to focus on/specialize in? (Healing/Therapeutic gardens, designing for the aging population, historic preservation, environmental remediation?)
5. Do I want to work primarily alone, or as part of a team (if so, what kind of team?)
6. Do I want to be part of a high-stress, exciting, entrepreneurial team or a governmental bureaucratic system? (it seems we end up in one or another)
7. Do I want to be in the position of selling my services? (And is there an way to avoid this in any profession?)
Where can I go from here?
1. Start taking more classes at night at PCC, and say goodbye to my social life. Figure out more as I take more classes.
2. Start putting together graduate school applications for UC Berkeley, U of Ore., U of NM, Harvard
3. Volunteer at a nursery on the weekends
4. Try to get a job at a nursery
5. Try to get an admin. job at a landscape construction/architecture company
6. Do all of the above while still working at the church
7. Quit my job and go full force in seeking the above on a full-time basis
Ideas from friends:
1. Don't get stuck in the administrative assistant trap - i.e. work at an administrative job just because you need the money - don't let that delay you in making steps toward what you really want to do
2. Talk to grad school professors/advisors and ask them about their programs - ask them about where graduates are working, what kind of jobs they are finding, etc.
3. Talk to PCC instructors
4. Try volunteering on the weekends at a nursery or garden shop
This is not the end. I am excited about things to come. Help me, Lord, in being faithful wherever I am, whatever I am doing. To remember that it really is about the journey.
(Photo credit:
http://w10.naukri.com/jg/nifco/images/CareerChoice.jpg and http://www.affect-solutions.co.uk)
THE ROAD NOT TAKENTwo roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost
4 comments:
Your plaint reminds me of an old Neil Young song of which i was listening some this summer on tour. We used to dream of things we wanted to do with our lives, now most people tend only to dream of what the best and worst parts of the previous provided for them. My advice is to go with
A) 3;
B) 3, 5, 7;
C) 3, 4, then back to 1;
D) 4, then 3;
I can offer lots of reasons, but one is paramount. We live on a very fragile earth in deep need of healing. Insuring local food resources is absolutely necessary. Having skills (and subsequent academic knowledge) in areas of: organic farming, use of indigenous and native plants species for both food and bio-diversity, and relationship of the real economy as people meet food resources--prepares you to be anywhere in any setting and to be successful. All the rest relies on our economy to be of primary concern; that is what is killing the Earth.
People say don't rock the boat, let things go their own way
Ideas that once seem so right, now have gotten hard to say
I wish I could talk to you, you could talk to me
cause there very few of us left my friend
From the days that used to be.
Seem like such a simple thing to follow ones own dream
But possessions and concession are not often what they seem
They drag you down and load you down in disguise of security.
But we never had to make those deals
In the days that used to be.
Talk to me, my long lost friend, tell me how you are
Are you happy with your circumstance, are you driving a new car
Does it get you where you wanna go, with a seven year warranty
Or just another hundred thousand miles away
From days that used to be.
Your insights are greatly appreciated, Mark! (btw, do you still go by Mark?) I need voices like yours in my life to keep me on the straight and narrow! Thank you for taking the time to read my blog and being so thoughtful in your response. It is nice having someone help guide the way. I've added you to my "Favorite Places" and will visit often. Thank you again for helping me remember what really matters. Peace.
I just realized that "straight and narrow" is not the best descriptor of the path. Curvy. Unknown. Good. Sacred. Blessed. Abundant. maybe these are better ways of describing the Way.
You are most welcome. For years, i have tried to find the few amazingly enlightened spirits among the youth of this nation, realizing that within them lies the real hope of our universe. You are most certainly one of them. It is i who is most grateful and appreciative that you are who you are.
The Dine' called it the Way of Beauty, walking the path with beauty all around you. The Lakota called it the Red Path, the way of being always attentive to the mystery being revealed. The Tao symbolizes it as the narrow horizon of balance between the Yin and Yang, curving in the perfect golden ratio. You are walking it.
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