First of all, I should begin with the fact that I honestly had a pretty good week. I have a bad habit of over-representing the degree to which the things I think about during the hour it takes me to fall asleep actually represent the experience I had during the week, so I’ll at least give this post the benefit of beginning with perspective. I was able to go to Pittsburgh to see Villanova play their first March Madness game of the year with my dad and a bunch of friends, and that was really special.
Since I’ve been here, I haven’t gotten to really see a normal tournament game due to a mix of COVID and team injuries, and I also hadn’t gotten to go to a game with my dad, who is a Nova alum. It felt great that both got to happen at once, and the road trip was honestly nice despite the lack of sleep. My roommates and I also hosted a watch party at our house for their second game, and that was just as fun in many ways, so we’re doing it again this week. All in all, this was a genuinely good week and I’m really grateful for the experiences I got to gain during it. My optimism begrudgingly admitted, I shall carry onto the things that keep me up at night.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my post-grad plans lately. Every time I think I finally have things pinned down, my own analysis results in me realizing the track I’ve landed on genuinely isn’t the right one for me. This isn’t the case of me finding one issue and giving up on it, it’s a genuine gut reaction based on things people say to me and conclusions I reach on my own that I might be headed down the wrong path, not just not exactly the right one.
For a while, I really thought that becoming a philosophy professor would be a great path for me. Perhaps it still is, I haven’t exactly landed on the answer definitely being no, but I’ve come to realize that the life I want doesn’t necessarily reflect that. Having choice as to where I get to live is immensely important to me, and that is simply something you do not get both in the education process of becoming a professor or the early stages of job placement. At best, I might be able to choose where I live by the time I’m 55. As far as I’m concerned, that is too late, at least if it isn’t by choice.
Lately, my interests have been leading me down a path that is more close to landscape architecture and/or urban planning. I’ve found that a lot of the issues I find to be sincerely important are solvable through better communities and more experiences with nature, and I think there’s a lot of valuable work to be done in those fields that I would enjoy and feel great about. Even better, I don’t think these fields necessarily negate the possibility of academia or of writing a book, a goal of mine that I hold to be immovably important in picking a career. Finally, I do think that they also present a path to an immediate post-grad job that, at a bare minimum, wouldn’t be as soul crushing as the current sales positions I’ve unsuccessfully tried to convince myself will be okay for two years until I make it to graduate school.
This presents my primary problem, which is that I feel myself coming back to over and over is what to do with myself immediately after graduation, and most specifically what range of options to extend myself.
Living around Villanova affords me great social benefits. I’ll get to live with long-time friends, and be near the friends I have who are still at Villanova. I’ll also be near my family, and be in an area I’m familiar with, so it would allow me a greater level of control during a period of my life I expect to be fairly chaotic.
Here’s the problem with that: I’ve never had any great love for “here.” Pennsylvania is a state that I would generally assume to be ranked right at 25th in just about every significant measure. This state is so painfully average and mediocre in every way possible. It has some beautiful parts, and I won’t deny that, but by and by, and particularly in the area I grew up in and the area I now live in, it’s just awfully regular. There’s nothing innately wrong with this, but I want to live somewhere really beautiful. I want to be surrounded by extremes: towering trees, jagged mountains, rocky seashores, and the like. The western U.S., the Pacific Northwest, Maine, and even Norway have been calling to me for the past year, and I feel I owe it to myself to live somewhere like that at some point.
I know that I will (most likely) not die in my 20s, and that I’ll hopefully have opportunities to live in some great places later in life. My fear is that complacency will set in as it seems to for so many, and before I know it I’ll be 60 and still living in one of hundreds of German named small towns in Pennsylvania. As far as I am concerned with my own life, this absolutely cannot happen, and the fact that it is a possibility is likely my single greatest fear in life.
The other problem is that a lot of the jobs around here, as one might expect, are just boring, regular suburban jobs. I’ve really tried to convince myself that one of these wouldn’t be so bad, especially if it’s only for a couple years, but I just can’t sell myself on it. Sales Associate, Project Manager, Financial Analyst: all of these corporate titles pop out at me on a daily basis, and they all have their unique selling points. I just keep getting stuck on the very simple fact that they’re just all so… soulless. They’re not doing much of anything for anyone, least of all the person doing the job.
Sure, a decent paycheck and remote work is great and I won’t deny that, and maybe two years isn’t so long to do pretty much anything. I just very firmly believe you ought not do things that you hate doing, especially if there’s no greater meaning to them, and I know at this point that all of these sell-out positions are things I would hate doing. At this point, I can genuinely say I would rather wait tables or work in a factory (lest you doubt me, I’ve done it before and didn’t mind it) than be parked at a desk shilling a product I don’t even use for any amount of time.
As I said earlier, I’ve been looking into jobs in community planning and landscape architecture, and, at least for those that I might actually be qualified, all of them are on the west coast. This sounds great and all, and I’m becoming more and more tempted by it, I’ve just not been able to overcome the mental hurdles which leaving 100% of the people I know behind have presented me. My life is based around these people, and I’m losing enough of them through graduation as is. I really don’t know if I can handle leaving them all behind to go west, even if I do want to live amongst the trees and do work I’m proud of.
I’m having a really hard time finding answers here. It seems to me that I’m just going to have to face the ultimatum, and I really do not know how to decide. All of the factors but people say go west, but I cannot put into words what those people mean to me. I joked today that all it would take is one heartbreak or one more friend leaving for another state for me to pull the trigger, and honestly maybe it wasn’t so much of a joke. The scales seem about even, and that might be what does it. Right now, though, what I’ve got is a perfectly even race between two alternatives that have as many cons as pros, at least in terms of weight.
To wrap things up bluntly, I’m not a word short of utterly terrified of where I’ll be on May 14th. When I wake up completely done with school, at least for the time being, for the first time in my entire life, I really don’t know how I’ll react. Time is running out for me to find answers to that, and the stress of that pressure is really starting to weigh on me. The “what are you doing after graduation” question is approaching breakdown inducing, and I wish that wasn’t the case. I know I don’t need the exact right answer to all of this, but I categorically refuse to knowingly pick the wrong one. That’s more pressure I’ve added onto myself, even if I think that it’s worthwhile pressure in the long run. Really, it just all adds up to a great concoction of me losing sleep every night.
Luckily, I restocked on melatonin, so I’ve got that going for me!
Hopefully this week provides some steps in the right direction, or at least some more sleep and a pair of Villanova wins. Go Cats!
The Line 
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