How I Ended Up Here

"Scratch an incompetent teacher or . . . college professor and half the time you find a displaced first-class automobile mechanic or a goddam stonemason."

-- J.D. Salinger, "Franny and Zooey"

There is a man who works down the hall from me who I barely know, but who I am absolutely sure is in the wrong line of work. For one thing, he is about ten times the introvert I am (if you know me, you know that is really saying something) and yet he is in a profession where he frequently has to interact with other people. Also, I don't think I have ever seen him smile. Ever. If he rarely smiled, that would be one thing, but never? That is an indication of a person who is not happy with where he is.

I sometimes wonder how he came to be where he is. How did he come to chose a line of work that is seemingly so antithetical to his personality? Did he think he would eventually get used to it? Was it what other people thought he should do?

That is why I am in a job I can't stand: because everyone besides me thought it was a good idea. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to blame other people. They were giving me their honest opinions. I just failed to take into account that I am weird and tend not to like things that most other people like -- bananas, for example, or yoga.

I have made this mistake before. When I started college I decided to live on campus, even though I was attending a school near my home, because this was what other people thought I should do. "Get away from home." "Be independent. "Experience the real world." These are the things that everyone said. Never mind that suddenly spending 24 hours a day among a couple dozen total strangers was about the worst situation someone as introverted as me could find herself in. Never mind that dorm living bears absolutely no resemblance to the "real world" whatsoever. The upshot, as I should have known, was that I hated it. It made me physically ill and I moved home after one semester. Although I continued to go to school as a commuter for a while, I quit before actually finishing my degree. I often wonder if I might not have done so had my initial experience with college not been so overwhelmingly negative.

So I really should have known better. My head -- and the heads of many people whose opinions I respect -- was seeing the positive aspects of the job I'm now in: the location, the hours (sort of) and, of course, the money. Meanwhile, my heart was asking, "Is this really what you want to do?" I went with my head and here I am.

Part of the problem is I don't really KNOW what I want to do. I thought that by the time I was approaching forty I would know what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I don't. So I guess I'll stick with this job (for the money -- there's really nothing else I get out of it) until I figure that out.