Everything is impossible until it is possible. Once something becomes possible, it can no longer be impossible.
When I was younger, so many things seemed so far away. Dreams, hopes, goals… so many of them seemed exponentially easier to conceptualize than to actually materialize, yet I always believed that they would come at some point. They just had to come. Much has changed in a short amount of time. We live in an age in which my Chicago Cubs are your reigning World Series champions and my Seahawks are a perennial powerhouse (and have won a Super Bowl). We live in a time when Day at the Fair actually releases new music. We live in a time when a reality television star with no experience can be elected president of the United States (okay, they can’t all be good things).
The world in which we live seems to be showing us that anything is possible, yet there is this strange dichotomy that makes it seem as if some things have never been more impossible. For all the grief that “millennials” receive from their older and “wiser” counterparts, the fact of the matter is that the deck is stacked higher than it has ever been. Good jobs and nice houses are not just there for the taking. It is significantly easier to collect debt than it is to collect experience. Many places do not want to hire someone without experience, but heaven forbid that person has too much experience. They price themselves right out of that job!
I had to scratch and claw for years to get to where I am now. I paid my dues as a substitute teacher for three years. There were years that fewer than 50 social studies jobs posted in the state of Illinois for the entire year! When I finally received a full time job offer, it was in an alternative school setting. It was a high stress, low pay environment. I paid my dues there for another three years. When I finally received a full time job offer at a public school, it was a bait and switch and was not the position for which I interviewed. Even so, it was a better opportunity than where I had been working. When I FINALLY got that full time social studies teaching position, it was not quite ideal, but it was what I had worked so long to obtain. That is what personally bothers me about some of the older generation railing on mine. They have no concept of the fact that I spent the better part of a decade fighting for something that was readily available to their generation immediately upon college graduation. I stand on the doorstep of 30, and I am where I wish I would have been at the age of 23. That frustrates me at times, but I am thankful that I am here at 29 instead of 39.
We live in a world that is so frustratingly dreary at times, but for some strange reason I am still filled with hope. This madness… it *has* to turn around. It just does. There are too many people working too hard to make things happen. While I do not always agree with the methods or the motives, I will always support those who make an effort. Fear, doubt, and loathing do not make things happen. Actions do. We truly do live in a world of boundless possibilities. We just have to work a little harder to realize these possibilities.
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