“Where Are You Going In Life?”: A Holiday Special

Premiering this Wednesday night and lasting all through the holidays, brought to you by Your Family, the inevitable interrogation: “What are you doing with your life?” or the various other ways to phrase that prying query.

It’s open season for your relatives to find you at family dinners and ask about life. Oh, it seems so innocuous at first: “What classes are you taking?” “How’s that job?” And then: “So what do you want to do with that?” “Where are you going in life?”

Well, right now I’m headed for the eggnog – unless there’s some gin and tonic available, because I’m going to need something stronger to handle that question.

Since preschool we have been asked “What do you want to do?” And now that we’re twenty-somethings, the question still persists (*heavy sigh*) – and in so many other forms. People are no longer content to hear you want to be a fireman or a nurse – or, like I used to say, an Egyptologist. Sorry, guys, I don’t want to dust off pyramids anymore.

They want concrete, “realistic,” relevant answers. Like, what do you actually want to do? And not just what you want to do, but what are you doing. I imagine (read: hope) the inquiries will stop when I turn 30, but I think that’s false hope. The cross-examination only ceases once you fulfill first world society’s ideal of what is success: Steady job, permanent location, married, kids on the way. And if after achieving this, the variables fluctuate – say, you divorce or you quit your job to go do something else, God forbid – the grilling begins all over. I’ve seen it from afar: Suddenly your cousin is the condescending “So, Joe, now that you’re no longer as successful as me, what are you going to do about that?”

What Joe should say: “Sorry, my mouth is stuffed with turkey and sangria, so I can’t answer you.”

Senior year of college, the most contentious question to ask your peers was, “What are you doing after graduation?” Some people ask because they’re curious and have no judgment (ha! Everyone has judgment!), and some people want to know so they can compare life paths (“Mine puts me at $10K more than you”).

Millennials ducked that hurdle by assuring our collective selves that “it’s okay” not to know what you’re doing postgrad – until you’re a few years out. Like me now. But oh wait, I’m in grad school/have an internship/I must know what I’m doing.

WHERE DID THIS MYTH COME FROM?

Maybe, just maybe, I went to grad school to avoid answering the question of my life path. I got a BS in statistics, not in Life’s Purpose. And just because I’m in grad school for something super STEM-y does not mean I might not go become a New York columnist (which is better than a Minneapolis or LA columnist, obviously) or work with Ebola in Africa (which is what I would really love to do, do you hear that, Mom and Dad?). “So then why are you in grad school?” I don’t know!

But oh, if you don’t know about your career, we can change the subject. My aunt will ask if there’s anyone special in my life, and my mom will answer for me – and then she will add, “It’s because he doesn’t know how to compromise.” Well, eff you, too.

Finally, to shush everyone, I’ll admit, “I’m just working toward a place where one day I can make a pumpkin pie and not feel compelled to Instagram it to show that I’m an adult.”

However, I’m guessing they don’t make pumpkin pies in Africa. Sorry, everyone.

Instagram Inspiration

As a social media specialist, part of my job is monitoring all social media sites for people talking about us. Most of the time, I end up having to inform people that we actually donate the money people give us, and not pocket it. It is draining dealing with how rude people can be, but one discovered tweet makes ciphering through all the bullshit absolutely worth it. A girl tweeted a link to Instagram, which she labeled as a picture she bought to support us. Obviously, this intrigued me, as I didn't know of a picture promotion we were having, so I clicked. And what I found was the most inspirational piece of social media content that I've ever seen.

A five year old boy is hand drawing pictures of all his favorite animals to sell to friends and family in order to buy chickens for a family in need. He's five and already has a bigger heart than anyone I've ever met. Naturally, I wanted to write about it, because who can honestly hear about what he is doing and not want to find a simple way to give back, just like him.

I reached out to the mother, who was incredibly proud -- as she should be. I could not wait to write about this young boy, yet when I sat down to write, all I could think of was writing about how moved I was from what he was doing.

Clearly there is something wrong with me that I couldn't get past my own feelings to write about him. I was just so enamored with this kid's story that it was essentially blinding me from being able to write about him without writing about me feeling so strongly about it. As if, I believed that people would not understand how amazing he is, unless I said how incredible I thought he was explicitly in the story.

And that's when my writer's block broke. This five year old's passion for drawing and helping people reignited my passion's flame for writing. I knew I had to write a great piece in order to capture his story. I needed to figure my shit out in honor of this kid.

The post is still in progress, but after staring at the screen for what was close to an hour, I was finally able to break ground on writing a piece that captures how wonderful the five year old is without including myself in the article. I'm very excited to be back in the writing mode. I've made it over a huge hump, all thanks to a little kid drawing some really meaningful pictures.