I probably send out a job application every week. I start off with three or four on Monday, abandoning about 75 percent on and around hump day. Elimination has no clear cut rules, but it usually goes something like this.

1)      “Do I want to leave what I’m doing now for this? It’s not that different, and with not as much pay off.” (my current job has tuition remission― awesome but slow-going)

2)      “What the heck, what’s there to lose?”

3)      “I’m too qualified” or “I’m not qualified enough.” (usually the latter)

4)      “Wait, what do I really want to do with my life?”(consequently the need for graduate school)

5)      Then I tell myself the inevitable, “Nevermind.”

Hence, since I spend most of my time fighting with myself, the weekly tally is one completed application. The most I get for a response is A) Nothing or B) A generic email from Human Resources. In exactly two weeks to the tee, or maybe one (depending on how desperate I’m feeling) I follow-up. All the while, I can’t help hearing the iconic, sad trombone sound effect, WAH-WAH-WAH-WAH, every time I click the Submit button.

Elizabeth Gilbert quoted a striking passage in her book, Eat Pray Love, “God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen.” Well, on my spiritual days this Sufi poem is insightful and uplifting, but at my current stage in life I have a couple words to say to God. Let’s skip the sides and get to the meat of things, I want that circle bolded and colored red.  I want to be standing in it, or at least closely lurking on the border.

So the question is, should I be present for the journey that is my life and take things as they come, or should I continue to stay up till 3am every night questing for this “almighty job” I seek? A balance of the two would be ideal.

  -Elyse Wood

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