Thoughts for the Week

So this week, as with many since I graduated, I’ve been looking back and looking forward. How did I come to this point? How did the tiny decisions I made along the way make such substantial differences to my present life? It’s difficult for any graduate right now to make any kind of decision. It’s always a trade off, which is the lesser of the two evils? Sometimes of many evils. There is no definite answer, no right or wrong course of action and you can never be sure where each decision will lead. I know people who have made huge decisions and travelled to the other side of the Earth and sometimes it’s worked out and sometimes it hasn’t. I’ve seen people make the most insignificant choices possible and a whole spiralling series of consequences have led them in some unimaginable direction. It’s ridiculous I know to appear surprised by the randomness of the human existence. I mean people have made this discovery over and over again since we first started thinking and feeling and reflecting on the world around us. You would have thought by now that we would have learnt to simply listen to the observations of our predecessors, but we don’t. We are continually amazed, like the way we are constantly perplexed by how dark it can be at five o’clock in the evening despite the fact that the nights draw in at that time in December every year. Perhaps this is an endearing quality among the human race, like new born infants we are perpetually bamboozled by what is around us, never learning, never growing in wisdom, never worldly.

Take my situation for example, no amount of presupposition could have guessed where my choices would lead me. After the summer of my graduation I chose to return to my university city. I applied for tens of jobs and heard nothing. Finally, out of desperation, I took a flexible part time job at a well-known coffee chain at the recommendation of a friend who worked there. That was over a year ago now and though it’s not my ideal career path I’ve made friends, met my current partner and saved enough money to see some small section of the world. Others have not been so fortunate. Waiting for that dream job to come is a long exercise, longer than any of us ever thought it would be.

I keep wondering, what if any one of those other jobs had got back to me? Who then would be my friends or my boyfriend? Would I ever go into that coffee shop and order a drink with blank indifference from the people I could have known so well? More to the point all this questioning leads me to wonder about the future. Should I do the postgraduate course? Should I wander around the globe until the funds dry up? With so much hanging upon the smallest choice the big decisions fill me with dread. What if I choose the wrong one? I see people moving on around me and people standing still. It’s frightening. It feels like it’s a constant battle to stay in one group and not drift into the other. My friends move away, get job interviews, get opportunities, get partners and trot off across the world. I see people from my school working the same job they did five years ago and the regulars at work, turning up day after day for the same shifts, sometimes with their daughters, old and young, who have followed in their footsteps. I know that for me a mundane nine to five and a comfortable home will never be enough. I’m not saying that I need fame or fortune but adventure would be nice, or freedom. Week in week out you can see the steady grind of life crushing the spirit out of people and it’s terrifying.

Although surely all this musing should have taught me that there’s no point worrying. We’ll never know how things are going to turn out. All we can do is make the best decision with the information available to us and then hold on for dear life as the consequences unravel. So I guess the conclusion I’ve come to this week is that there’s hope, hope for all of us unemployed, underpaid, disillusioned wastrels. I’ve seen fellow colleagues move from cappuccinos to business suits so why can’t I? There’s no one pivotal moment that will get me there, just sheer determination and the slow erosion of time.