Brave new economy

I cannot adequately express how ecstatic I am about today's economy. The prospect of spending months unemployed while sending out resumes and conducting interviews thrills me to no end. Maybe I will get a job right after I graduate. But actually I hope I don't, because engaging in job-hunting activities is simply so much fun. Think of the risks involved! Think of the excitement! The way I see it, job-seeking is destined to become the next big extreme sport.\nIf I don't find a job, I know that I can always go to graduate school. This strategy bears the double advantage of driving myself into debt and making myself vastly overqualified for most existing jobs. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera." To that I add, "If it falls your lot to be a janitor, scrub toilets like the Ph. D. you just might be."\nThe message we've soaked up for so long is "If you get a college education, you'll be assured of snagging a great job." Boy, how true that is! One of my older brothers graduated from college several years ago, and after a lengthy, adventure-filled job search, he secured not one, but two awesome jobs: working in a bookstore and delivering newspapers. It was so heartwarming to see his life-long hopes realized. I only hope I can be that lucky.\nAccording to a longitudinal study conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average person born from 1957 to 1964 held nearly 10 jobs from ages 18 to 36. Of jobs that the workers began while ages 18 to 22, 72 percent ended in less than a year. Even among jobs started by workers when they were ages 33 to 36, 43 percent ended in the first year and 76 percent ended in fewer than five years. \nAlthough some people might find such statistical indicators disheartening, I think they're fantastic. Why have one job when you could have 10, or even 20 or 30? More is better! Find something new every year or two. Be a temp and you can work someplace new nearly every day. Heck, why don't we take this trend to its natural extreme? We already have drive-through restaurants and drive-through weddings.\nWhy not drive-through jobs?\nI know millions of people still pursue traditional careers. What I don't understand is, "why?" Working at a respectable, comfortable middle- or upper-class job -- that's so bourgeois. Holding one stable job throughout one's adult life -- that's dull, so passé. But slaving away at a demeaning, low-wage job -- now, that's the really hip thing to do. Bouncing from one job to another -- now, that's daring. Ridding yourself of all emotional investment in your career and all loyalty to your employer -- now, that's true freedom.\nI am so totally stoked to graduate and taste these economic realities for myself. \nAlmost from the womb, we've been encouraged to aspire to greatness, to chase the American dream, to become anything we want to be. Now I realize we've been lied to. \nThe reality is so much better than anyone ever told me. Not only can I fulfill my dream of becoming a temp, a waitress and a telemarketer, but I can do all three at the same time!\nI love America.\nI love the economy.