I thought I would have a job by now.
Actually, I thought I would have more than a job by now. Four months after graduation, I thought I would have it all. Live in the big city in my own studio (or one bedroom if I got lucky), work a job I actually enjoyed, and even make that insanely expensive gym pass worth my money.
Four months after graduation, I'm still sitting on my parents' couch in sweats, alternating between applying to jobs, writing and watching the daily Sex and the City marathons on E!. Some people see it as an extended vacation, but it gets old after a while. I didn't think I'd go from working two jobs on a full course schedule to doing close to nothing.
When I started applying, way back when, last October, I looked at jobs I thought correlated with my talents and education. Sure, I was fairly inexperienced, but I was willing and motivated and hell, I was graduating from the University of Virginia. I was looking at big girl jobs, jobs with responsibility and some amount of independence. After advising one of my friends to avoid the mistakes I made when I first started out, I realized how cocky I was.
Now, I'm looking at assistant jobs and secretarial work. Four months ago, I swore I wasn't going to graduate from one of the top universities in the country to be a glorified secretary. But in this job market, with the amount of new grads looking for work, I'll be lucky to even get that. It's a really shitty feeling.
But the worst feeling of all? Thinking that you're the only one.
For new grads like me, with a wealth of ideas but little wealth in their bank accounts, having a job is everything. Your independence ultimately relies on your ability to make money. No money means no apartment in the big city -- and for someone who lives away from all signs of civilization (aka New Jersey), that also means little to no social life. No job, no money, no apartment -- and not even my eyebrows can be 'on fleek.'
So here I am, trying to 'make it' post-grad when it seems like everyone else already 'has it,' even people my age in my own family. Everyone has been successful, except for me. With running the risk of all this sounding like white, middle-class whining, I not-so-secretly envy all those people posting on Facebook and Twitter about their work and their friends and their independence. I find myself spending more time being jealous of my supposedly more successful counterparts, envying the obstacle-free path they set themselves on and fearing the mundane life I prepared myself for. What are all these people doing right that I'm doing wrong? How did I work so hard, and still not yet reap the rewards?
But while some are successful -- and those are the ones consistently bragging on social media -- it's all an illusion perpetuated by the frequency of how much we compare our accomplishments to those of others. The reality is that there are so many post-grads like me out there who struggle with the same feelings of shame and embarrassment that come with being unable to live up to our own expectations; there was even a movie made about adjusting to the disappointment of post-college life. But there really isn't any shame in being in this predicament. It won't last forever. Sooner or later, we'll get out of these sweats and into our suits and make our mark in the workforce. And maybe we'll even briefly envy those days of sitting on the couch doing close to absolutely nothing. But right now, we can perfect the art of failure by simply not allowing ourselves to believe that we have failed.