Here and Now

So today marks my one year mark on living in Indianapolis. Sadly instead of getting a group of my friends together to celebrate my success with champagne, I left work at eight thirty, bought some groceries, and talked to my parents about cosigning a loan to purchase a home because I do not have the funds to do so. Party time! If I knew where I would be when I was eighteen I would have kicked my future self in the ass.

My story is fairly common among people in my age bracket. I am twenty five and not to long ago graduated from college. I make decent money, but definitely not the amount I thought I would be making. I have a job that is agreeable with me, but not the one I have a passion for. Currently I am living check to check with some extra spending money but nothing really attributed to my savings. Perhaps I should have been a rapper. It seems like a lot of people my age are in this situation and are surprised by it. I think we were all under the same idea that if you work hard and go to college they immediately give you a high paying job and a great home and credit lines you will never worry about paying off because your to busy stockpiling cash away into your 401K.

Legitimately all that is a pipe dream. I’m not upset that I don’t have all the luxuries I dreamed I would after dedicating a lot of time and effort into studying and homework assignments. What bugs me as that no one really warns you on the struggling times you have immediately following college, perhaps why that’s why I have so many friends in graduate school. It could be things didn’t used to be this way. I remember a lot of the older guys in my fraternity immediately getting fairly good paying jobs before the diploma was in their hand. All of them had jobs lined up and had a five year plan. Now a lot of us are scrambling to find internships after we have already completed school just for more experience to give us a leg up on the competition.

I think our generation has taken a lot for granted though, like in many instances we expected a lot to be handed to us. If things get tough, ask mom and dad, if that didn’t work; charge it. I don’t speak specifically to my group of friends, for the most part they all came from families that taught us the value of a dollar and be prepared to work hard in your life and you can live well. It is unfortunate how many people just want the world handed to them. It is too often I hear adults my age demanding the good job with benefits because they received an eighty six percent on a test in biology class. I figure my life has really just begun, this is the time where my character will be developed by my will to persevere, and it is what separates me from old kids to a young adult. Sadly I was not aware I would have to sell hemorrhoid treatment over the phone to get to that point.

All and all life after graduation isn’t all that it is cracked up to be, but I don’t know if I would want it any other way. Everyone dreams of getting the big boy job with vacation time and dental included. To be fair, if you walk right into that job without the struggling process you don’t know how lucky you are. I am proud to say for a year I have busted my ass off in getting by and trying to become a better person. I took a job that honestly forced me to have a great sense of humor about myself or I would have hit depression. My three year relationship with my girlfriend ended and I have been living in my friends’ spare bedroom for three months while I paid the lease on my old apartment my ex still lived in. Most people would chalk this up to a pretty lousy year. But that is what Living the Dream is all about; getting there. The tough times you got through make the best stories. A lot of people tell me it’s hard out there to find a good job due to our sagging economy and to just be happy I’m working. I’m not going to have an excuse when I’m thirty because I don’t have the career I wanted. I’m going to tell the story how I never gave up. I’m going to tell a story how I made the best of life and got the job that was right for me. Followed by how I worked in a hemorrhoid clinic for three months…