I graduated from the University of Michigan this past December. I have to say that out of anybody I've known to graduate, no one else took it as seriously as I did. I planned a three-day celebration with an itinerary and everything. I picked out the perfect outfits for each party, each dinner, and for commencement ceremony. I had a bar crawl with clearly not enough people to be having a bar crawl, but I didn't care, I had the t-shirts made and that night I drank-up for the past four years of bliss I had had.
In my head, I did all this because I want to be able to look back in 20 years and still feel the excitement and utter pride that I felt knowing that I had worked sooo hard. I had used up every second always doing something, never cheating my way out of the opportunities that had been granted to me. I had devoted myself to every lecture, every book, every paper, and I finally deserved, if only for one weekend, to celebrate myself and the person that I have become.
I was in such a state of joy, I felt like the world was at my feet and that I was invincible and ready to take on absolutely anything. By late January I was set with a job in the Chicago area that promised the ability to say I was now working for a great financial institution and earning great pay. I jumped in full-force expecting to love it... or to love it enough to stick it out for a bit while I figured out what it was I really wanted to do with my life. As I studied through my Series 6, Series 63 and Insurance licensing I suddenly found myself taking part of a monstrous battle. I battled myself. I began to have what I like to call an 'early-20's life crisis' questioning my decision to be working for a bank. My questions, however, went farther. I questioned everything that our society values. Why do we all strive to have a job, buy a car, get married, buy a house...and essentially to build a life of monotonous repetition where all that really matters is the paycheck we receive every two weeks? I didn't get it and it made me angry, it angered me that no one during my college career warned me of this. It angered me that no one around me seemed to question it. It angered me that I couldn't just let it go and accept reality. I pushed through training hoping that this was just a phase and that I would find that motivation I felt for going into the real world during graduation weekend. It never came, instead I kept sinking into fear, anxiety, and insecurities. As soon as I stepped foot into my banker position I began to see a handful of practices that disregarded ethics and policies. In this industry, these actions are all justified by the phrase "business is business."
Here I pause to say that I do not judge anyone; there are people that have no problem doing whatever it takes to get to the top and it doesn't make them better or worse people. It simply makes them players of a game for power. I studied Economics, I fully understand what business is, what business does. I simply don't think I went to school to forget my ethics and my values the moment I enter the workforce simply because everybody else does.
Still, I pushed through. I hated waking up knowing that it was time to go to work. I hated the 'uniform' I had to wear and I hated the person I saw in the mirror. I saw my co-workers and supervisors performing a job, but not moved to make a difference or go above and beyond. I found this utterly depressing. I felt like I had lost sight of my desires and my dreams to give way for other people's dreams. I performed OK, I could do the job, I could convince myself to do the job but it pained me dearly to think that this was it for me.
Four months passed and after many tears of frustration, I quit... that word however has such a negative connotation. To quit is to fail, to quit is to not be strong enough or smart enough. To quit is to not show enough willingness to persevere. This weighed heavily on me, especially because I have a sea of people convinced that I will be driving a shiny new BMW by the time I am 25.
This is were the grace of God comes in however. After overcoming the fear of knowing how disappointed the people around me would be knowing that I had walked out on a dream job, I understood that none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was me. Even if I made everybody else happy, I would never find peace because I would be disappointing myself by keeping a job that was not fit for me. Just to drive the point home, God found it necessary to show me that what I was doing was correct. The day I left, a co-worker lost her job for performing practices that went against company policies. This was not her fault however. The blame falls on the system that allows people to run banks without even attempting to change current practices. If it works and looks good on paper, why change it? The blame is on the pressure put on workers to perform at impossible levels unless they are 'brave' enough to turn to cheating their way to the top. I wish her all the best, I really do.
It's been a week and a half since I left and I already found that happiness and excitement I felt during graduation weekend. I forgot what peace and serenity felt like. I forgot what a spontaneous smile felt like. When people ask me what my plans are... I eagerly reply, I found a part time job and I have NO idea what I want to do with my life. Then, I smile ecstatically. I kept praying for peace and for things to just fall into place for me. They really have. I feel like the world is mine and I can do absolutely anything with it. This time around not being seduced by the name of a company or by the paycheck but truly finding something I can commit to for the rest of my life. Failure does not even register in my vocabulary because I didn't quit a great job...I quit a path of unhappiness and dissatisfaction. I can only be proud of that.
More than ever, I know that the person I am today is everything that I have left behind. My desire to strive and to devote myself whole-hearted to everything I do; my need to learn something new everyday and my hopes to make this a better world...This all comes from my years at Michigan. I don't ever want to forget that, I don't ever want to lose sight of that.
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