Dear Engineer Mark,
Suck it in, boy! You are now
a part of the corporate world. You are now indefinitely bound to be a slave of
that world forty hours a week or so, since your position clearly requires you
working overtime at some point. It will sometimes eat your weekends up, too, brother. But you’ll do it, anyway, because of so many reasons including the
money you’ll need for your future (or in your case, for travel – always think
of United Kingdom, Gabon, Thailand, Caribbean, Micronesia, and most of all, USA’s
New York City). If you want a business, say a bar where you are its own
mixologist, you’ll need a butload of bucks for startup. If you want to continue
your studies, perhaps pursuing graduate school or even just attending formal
mixology class (that’s much more realistic, eh?), you’ll need something to pay
your dues. And bartering important and objectively valuable things for those is
kind of phased out already. Let’s face it: you WILL need the money for whatever
things you want to acquire sooner or later. And working for a corporation that
may (or may not, I don’t know yet) suck your soul out of you is a good source
of it. Referencing Phoebe Buffay when she was working on a corporate massage
parlor, it’s good money.
It’s a sacrifice for sure.
For the love of God, STOP BEING SUCH A BRAT. Yes. You have been sheltered all
your life, but it’s already different now. EVERYTHING. You’re about to enter
your mid-20s so you basically need to grow up (but not so fast, that won’t be
fun). Unlike before when you decided on something and only you got affected; now, your decisions have a direct effect to you and to the people you truly care
about (and care about you, for that matter). Take your parents, for example.
Almost two decades of working their asses off abroad just to give you
everything you need, even the things you said you need but obviously you didn’t.
And most of all, they paid for your school, from kindergarten up to a very much
extended college. Now they have been in debt since then. You are so lucky they
did that for you because if you were an American kid, you would have to move
out by the time you were 16 and pay your dues yourself. You need to sacrifice, and
consequently help them. It does not necessarily mean you have to pay their
debts for them. They already told you, it’s not your responsibility. What you
can do is a little sacrifice; earn something you can buy food with, not relying
on anything your parents would give you. Maybe, just maybe, think about it as
showing them that you can now stand with and on your own feet. Sounds like a
challenge to me. And you love challenging yourself (that’s why you love
Survivor, kiddo), right? Do it. Win this challenge. Besides, your parents even
sacrifice being together, you know, giving each other some lovin’. Being a
20-something, you know how important that is.
You’ll have to sacrifice
your time – social life, love life (good thing you firmly believe that the love
of your life will magically appear when you are in your 30s) – and even your
sanity. But in the long run, you will benefit from it. You’ll have the life you
dream every night before you go to sleep. Building that life will surely need
some security and strong foundation, both of which require a good amount of
time. Think of it this way: you are saving not only your money, but also your
time for future use. You are not working eight hours a day just wasting it. In
fact, you are saving it.
Your time for whatever you
are passionate about will be sacrificed, too. It will be dormant for quite
sometime, but you know it’s there. You’ve already read something that goes like
“success doesn’t happen overnight.” (Or was it abs, I can’t remember.) Take
what’s happening right now as a process that you’ll need to undergo in order to
be considered successful, whatever your definition of it is. At some point,
with high hopes (do not expect too much though) that the universe will conspire
to make whatever you want happen, you’ll be sitting in an office full of drafts
which need to get edited as soon as possible. You also need to understand that
sometimes, what you think your calling is isn’t really meant for you.
People know you are more
inclined to the right side of your brain. You’re much more interested in arts, literature,
and music. There goes the conflict – you finished a highly technical degree
which requires your left brain to be the dominant one. But you truly feel that
it never has been, and it never will be. How you finished engineering with that
kind of perspective is beyond me. For crissake, you are a licensed engineer!!! Own it. You earned it! It’s a feat which only a few can survive.
I really don’t know what you are so worried about. You’ve thought of quitting
your degree a million times over in between your college years. It’s pathetic. Yes,
you failed one too many times. But the fact that you finished it says a lot
about yourself. YOU ARE NOT A QUITTER. You make sure whatever you started, you
take full responsibility, even though you need the weight of the whole world to
push you to the edge just to finish it. It’s something to be proud of. It
proves you that you can do anything. And by anything I mean ANY THING!
All I’m saying is that you
don’t have to worry about anything. Corporate world is really a stressful place
to be. Nobody has ever said “Hey, corporate world is my Eden-Meets-Utopia
paradise. It’s so much fun in here that I’d probably stay here forever! I love
the way it sucks my soul into boundless nothingness.” Well, you probably won’t
hear anybody say those exact words ever, but you know what I mean. Corporate jobs aren’t a piece of cake, even being an editor which you truly wish you’d be. Everybody is struggling,
my dear, no matter how great some people lives seem to be on social media (a place
where wished fantasies become "posted" realities). Some people are
just good at “fake it ‘til you make it.” Try learning that, too.
Two months in and you are
already thinking of quitting?!! Geez. I won’t blame you, though, by the way.
They say that the beginning is always the hardest, the most difficult, and it’s
apparent on what’s happening to you now at work. But what the heck. Remember
when you thought that Differential Calculus’ maxima-minima concept was so hard
you’d fail every exercise and quiz and exam about it? Yet eventually, it became
like counting 1 through 10 in kindergarten that whenever they give you a
problem looking for the height of the rising water in cone-shaped container
(which is err, never), you can solve that like adding four and five. You
invested time and effort to master that, and those are what you need to get up
to speed on your current job position. You may know little or nothing right
now, but with hard work, patience, and self-discipline which you’ve already
acquired before, you will know the ins and outs of your job for sure. If you
unfortunately don’t (which I doubt you’d let happen anyway), it is not the end
of the world. The job isn’t for you, you’d realize. It’s a benefit on your
part, actually. Have fun, alright? See it as a win-win situation: you'll learn whether you master the job or not.
You have got to drop all
your worries and START BELIEVING IN YOURSELF. You may not be the nicest person in
town, nor the most handsome man anyone knows, but you are the strongest person
I know. With all the things you have been through, I know deep down inside, YOU
ARE STRONG. Take that. No excuses here. Your parents truly believe in you ever
since you’ve been conceived. Your (hashtag) [the] sister, even though
she always mocks you, is your biggest fan. Your superfriends dream and plan
their future with you, which I think require a huge trust for them to do.
And some other people out there who have not confessed their admiration and respect, for sure
believe in you. Believe in yourself - you owe that to those people, and especially to yourself!
When all else fails,
however, just remember that this, too, shall pass. So just suck it in, boy!
Sincerely,
Editor Greg