The certainty of uncertainty

Last time I checked, summer was supposed to be a time for relaxation.

Even working adults enjoy lazy sunsets on the patio or Sunday afternoons in a hammock; after all, summer in Indiana is only made all the more valuable by how iffy the weather is for our other three seasons.

And yet, this summer, I can’t seem to relax.

Sure, I’m working 40-ish hours a week at a low-paying job in an attempt not to mire myself in yet more student loans. Yet last summer, even while spending 8 hours or more per day on my feet at the same job, I could still relax.

I could go home and sit on a couch and read a book that wasn’t required for class, or, on the rare day off, sit in my kitchen and take an hour to finish my coffee. It wasn’t an amazing summer, but it helped me regain a little bit of the sanity and sense of routine I lose every semester.

Already, this summer is a different story.

Maybe it’s the fact that I lived in a sublet last semester with three graduating seniors. They’re all moving on to real jobs and grad school. They have plans — set plans that will get them somewhere. They had practical majors with jobs built in, and, a little late, I realized I don’t.

I suppose you could say I’m going through a bit of a crisis.

I can’t relax because there’s a feeling of career-motivated dread that refuses to leave me. It’s worry that broils in the pit of my stomach, always just below the surface. It’s uncertainty stress.

Last summer, I figured I had another two years to figure out where I was going and what I was doing. A year later, I’m no better than where I began.

I’m an English major. I might have a fancy professional writing concentration and a nice journalism certificate from the Ernie Pyle School, but I’m an English major nonetheless. Needless to say, I’m not being recruited by investment banks or scientific research firms, and I don’t have any cushy corporate offers coming my way anytime soon. Frankly, three years into college, I have no idea what I’m going to do. I chose my course of study, so I guess I should have thought a little harder about what that meant.

This summer, as my peers all toil away at unpaid internships, I’m working because I need the money. Paying for school myself has limited some of the risks I can take, like spending the summer working for free. As they make contacts that will get them stellar recommendations and possible job offers, I’m selling bikes to small children.

Every time I head to work, that thought won’t leave my mind. Even as I write this, that half-sick feeling of being behind is spreading through my body, tensing my muscles and sending my mind racing.

So, what am I going to do about it?

I have no idea.

I like to think English majors are prepared for a variety of different career paths. After all, good writers are valuable almost everywhere. Contrary to what many columnists have said about our generation, I think creative reasoning and critical thinking are indeed valuable skills to have in our information age, and god knows my quasi-liberal arts education has developed them.

I suppose you could say I’m flying by the seat of my pants.

Nonetheless, in the midst of my sobering realizations about the practicality of my major (three years too far in to change anything now), my panic is tempered by a glimmer of confidence. Coming from the generation whose parents told us we could do whatever we want, I think my unshakeable toddler confidence that I can be a princess or a zebra or a garbage man if I really want to is rearing its head. I’m not really sure which of those I want to be right now, if any, but my toddler self is telling me it’s somehow going to work out.

I’m guessing my sense of panic right now will last all the way through my senior year, until I finally (hopefully) get a job somewhere.

So, at this point, I don’t think I’ll have much mental relaxation this summer.

But maybe that’s good. A little stress always spurs me to work even harder, and, given my choice of major and the state of the job market for recent grads, maybe a little worry isn’t such a bad thing.

­— kelfritz@indiana.edu