mikeyboi20 (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} mikeyboi20) wrote,@ 2006-08-02 15:00:00 |
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Cam's 3 question
A few weeks ago Cam asked me:
Why haven't you haven't ever really been able to stay focused on one specific career or schooling goal, and how have you tried to overcome this?
I have been a bit bussey so I didn't have the time to answer this one but now I do.
Well I guess the reason that choosing a career goal has been so difficult for me is that it felt like if I found a career and didn’t find happiness then there would be no place left to go. As I ‘v said b4 I’ve struggled with depression my whole life. Even as a child I would have long bouts of depression. I’ve always felt isolated from others. And lastly, and most important for the question the future has always been Nirvana or Mecca to me. I’ve always used my dreams of the future as a place of refuge from the depression. However, as Buddhism has taught me my dreams of the future was ironically one of the major causes of my depression.
Rather then embrace both my life and myself in the now I was living in the future. So choosing a career scared me because I couldn’t find a job that lived up to the dream of the future that I built up. My dream future consisted of normal things a boyfriend, a good job and more popularity. However, the boyfriend and the job had to be perfect. And as for popularity I wouldn’t be content until everyone loved me. For me to choose a career and settle into it was a sort of death. Every career I thought of was connected to a sort of image of myself. When I wanted to go into massage therapy I thought that perhaps I could go to the gym a lot get into yoga and have this whole fitness persona, when I wanted to be a teacher I thought that this action would finally define me as a kind caring mature person. I wanted to be a social worker for the same reasons. I wanted to own my own business because this would define me as a creative and hard working person. All of the jobs involved the reshaping of my identity into something that wasn’t me. But every time I would think seriously about a new job the truth would strike me. I can't be that person. Even if I did get the qualifications for the job I wanted I would still be me.
But then I’d think maybe something else out there could help me define and change myself. It wasn’t exactly that I hated myself. It was more that I thought that I was incomplete. I think in this society male adulthood is very often equated with masculinity. Because I’m not really that masculine I think that it made me feel as though I was like a child. Being in-between masculine and famine is only something I’m just now beginning to understand and not devalue. This societies sexist attitude has not escaped me so being a more feminine man then the majority led me to resent myself. I never resented women but there was a long period of time when I resented feminine men. My gender issues have gave me more self esteem issues then being a gay man. I think that this is why I wanted a boyfriend so much. If I had a boyfriend then it would show me that someone could love and be attracted to me despite my femininity. I had a very strong desire for a masculine boyfriend. Looking back on it I realize that what I wanted was to be associated with his masculinity. I feel really embarrassed to look back at it now with my views on gender now. I think that femininity and masculinity are made more interesting when they are mixed. I also find it sad when someone chooses to make his or her entire identity a hyper masculine or hyper feminine persona. Don’t get me wrong there are many people who are supper masculine and supper feminine but are sincerely this way. What I don’t respect is when people define themselves only through gender because they are afraid of what else they will find in their personas.
Lately, I’ve began to realize that not only were my expectations unrealistic but they also weren’t even about happiness. I mean they were but the reason I wanted perfection is that I wanted my life and me to look great to everyone. In the past whenever I would find a guy hot a major thought that goes through my head is how will me and this person look as a couple to other people. I still wanted a boyfriend for all the right reasons but I also wanted someone who would impress people and show them that I’m a quality person. OK I still think like this. But, I am now mindful of it at least. I still think, “wow it would be incredible if I could date that guy because people would think we were such a cute couple” But now at least after I’ve thought about It, I think wow that’s really Fu*king superficial. Sometimes when I see a couple holding hands I'm jealous both because I want what they have and also because I want someone to look at me and another person the way that I look at those couples.
Buddhism has helped me a lot with these problems. Nowadays I think about Zen teachings a lot. This helps because I am thinking about philosophy rather then an idealized future or about what I am dissatisfied about in the now. It also helps because whenever I catch myself I just simply think to myself “Who are you not to suffer? Why should you live a life that is free of sadness, why would discomfort and pain not visit you?” As strange as it may seem these thoughts have been hugely helpful to me. These words don’t always get rid of all my complaints or dissatisfaction but they definitely help to put things in perspective. In many ways what I’ve spent my whole life railing against is mortality.
My new perspective makes my career questions a lot less scary. I know now that I will try hard to get a job that pays a livable wage that I can do well and not feel degraded doing. Beyond that I expect nothing more from work. But if I can’t get these things from a job I will continue to try to but absent of a bitterness or hatred to the world because why shouldn’t I face adversity. I’m now teaching ESL and I love it. It’s not my dream job and my manager is a bit of a jerk. But it’s a great starting point for me. I’ve given up on THE dream job. The other day I was talking to my brother and he asked me what I wanted to do in the future. I said that I didn’t really know but for now I would really like to teach ESL and tutor some high school and first year classes. I said that I could see myself doing that for a few years. He balked at the idea. He said "well yeah but don’t you want to do something with a bit more respect and money involved". And of course I would. But I finally realize that I have to start somewhere. And I’m 22 and I still don’t know what I REALLY want to do. And maybe I will never know or get to do what I REALLY want to. All I know is that I don’t want to be 30 something and working at a star-bucks for some teenage kid on a power trip.
A few weeks ago Cam asked me:
Why haven't you haven't ever really been able to stay focused on one specific career or schooling goal, and how have you tried to overcome this?
I have been a bit bussey so I didn't have the time to answer this one but now I do.
Well I guess the reason that choosing a career goal has been so difficult for me is that it felt like if I found a career and didn’t find happiness then there would be no place left to go. As I ‘v said b4 I’ve struggled with depression my whole life. Even as a child I would have long bouts of depression. I’ve always felt isolated from others. And lastly, and most important for the question the future has always been Nirvana or Mecca to me. I’ve always used my dreams of the future as a place of refuge from the depression. However, as Buddhism has taught me my dreams of the future was ironically one of the major causes of my depression.
Rather then embrace both my life and myself in the now I was living in the future. So choosing a career scared me because I couldn’t find a job that lived up to the dream of the future that I built up. My dream future consisted of normal things a boyfriend, a good job and more popularity. However, the boyfriend and the job had to be perfect. And as for popularity I wouldn’t be content until everyone loved me. For me to choose a career and settle into it was a sort of death. Every career I thought of was connected to a sort of image of myself. When I wanted to go into massage therapy I thought that perhaps I could go to the gym a lot get into yoga and have this whole fitness persona, when I wanted to be a teacher I thought that this action would finally define me as a kind caring mature person. I wanted to be a social worker for the same reasons. I wanted to own my own business because this would define me as a creative and hard working person. All of the jobs involved the reshaping of my identity into something that wasn’t me. But every time I would think seriously about a new job the truth would strike me. I can't be that person. Even if I did get the qualifications for the job I wanted I would still be me.
But then I’d think maybe something else out there could help me define and change myself. It wasn’t exactly that I hated myself. It was more that I thought that I was incomplete. I think in this society male adulthood is very often equated with masculinity. Because I’m not really that masculine I think that it made me feel as though I was like a child. Being in-between masculine and famine is only something I’m just now beginning to understand and not devalue. This societies sexist attitude has not escaped me so being a more feminine man then the majority led me to resent myself. I never resented women but there was a long period of time when I resented feminine men. My gender issues have gave me more self esteem issues then being a gay man. I think that this is why I wanted a boyfriend so much. If I had a boyfriend then it would show me that someone could love and be attracted to me despite my femininity. I had a very strong desire for a masculine boyfriend. Looking back on it I realize that what I wanted was to be associated with his masculinity. I feel really embarrassed to look back at it now with my views on gender now. I think that femininity and masculinity are made more interesting when they are mixed. I also find it sad when someone chooses to make his or her entire identity a hyper masculine or hyper feminine persona. Don’t get me wrong there are many people who are supper masculine and supper feminine but are sincerely this way. What I don’t respect is when people define themselves only through gender because they are afraid of what else they will find in their personas.
Lately, I’ve began to realize that not only were my expectations unrealistic but they also weren’t even about happiness. I mean they were but the reason I wanted perfection is that I wanted my life and me to look great to everyone. In the past whenever I would find a guy hot a major thought that goes through my head is how will me and this person look as a couple to other people. I still wanted a boyfriend for all the right reasons but I also wanted someone who would impress people and show them that I’m a quality person. OK I still think like this. But, I am now mindful of it at least. I still think, “wow it would be incredible if I could date that guy because people would think we were such a cute couple” But now at least after I’ve thought about It, I think wow that’s really Fu*king superficial. Sometimes when I see a couple holding hands I'm jealous both because I want what they have and also because I want someone to look at me and another person the way that I look at those couples.
Buddhism has helped me a lot with these problems. Nowadays I think about Zen teachings a lot. This helps because I am thinking about philosophy rather then an idealized future or about what I am dissatisfied about in the now. It also helps because whenever I catch myself I just simply think to myself “Who are you not to suffer? Why should you live a life that is free of sadness, why would discomfort and pain not visit you?” As strange as it may seem these thoughts have been hugely helpful to me. These words don’t always get rid of all my complaints or dissatisfaction but they definitely help to put things in perspective. In many ways what I’ve spent my whole life railing against is mortality.
My new perspective makes my career questions a lot less scary. I know now that I will try hard to get a job that pays a livable wage that I can do well and not feel degraded doing. Beyond that I expect nothing more from work. But if I can’t get these things from a job I will continue to try to but absent of a bitterness or hatred to the world because why shouldn’t I face adversity. I’m now teaching ESL and I love it. It’s not my dream job and my manager is a bit of a jerk. But it’s a great starting point for me. I’ve given up on THE dream job. The other day I was talking to my brother and he asked me what I wanted to do in the future. I said that I didn’t really know but for now I would really like to teach ESL and tutor some high school and first year classes. I said that I could see myself doing that for a few years. He balked at the idea. He said "well yeah but don’t you want to do something with a bit more respect and money involved". And of course I would. But I finally realize that I have to start somewhere. And I’m 22 and I still don’t know what I REALLY want to do. And maybe I will never know or get to do what I REALLY want to. All I know is that I don’t want to be 30 something and working at a star-bucks for some teenage kid on a power trip.
