I have never been much of a fan of organized religion. The only time I would consent to attending church when I was younger was to harvest the abundant supply of donuts that awaited my younger brother and I at the finale of worship every Sunday (and no offense, Jesus, but donuts taste way better than the Body of Christ…and they don’t stick to the roof of my mouth either. Have you ever considered upgrading your “Body” to strips of bacon instead?). Although the majority of my time spent during mass and Gospel readings was dedicated to grappling with inner moral dilemmas like sprinkles or glazed, I did enjoy learning about Jesus’ early life, that is to say because there is nothing. Between the ages of 12 and 30, there is no record of the life of Jesus. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, nada. While scholars contend that “historical evidence suggests he was probably studying under Jewish scholars” or “he’d often sit at the steps of religious buildings and listen to them debate their religion,” I’d like to believe those were some of young J-dog’s (that’s what his friends called him) toughest years.
Perhaps J-dog spent a summer working in a funeral home, preparing deceased corpses for burial. But to his bosses’ dismay, every dead body the new kid touched came back to life, thus getting fired because having the power to bring people back to life is bad for business when you are a mortician. Perhaps J-dog then decided to work as a bartender, but yet again his employment was terminated due to customers taking advantage of his flair for transforming water-to-wine. Or perhaps J-dog sat at home plagued by his own thoughts of the past, present, and future (“Well, everyone said I was going to be the savior, but I really can’t find a job I’m good at, so what am I suppose to do?). One thing is for certain, he did not want to be a carpenter like dad for the rest of his life. So WWJD (what was Jesus doing)?
Now while I am no messiah on biblical history (all I know is Joseph had an amazing technicolor dreamcoat that he liked to sing and dance about and Jesus was actually Jim Caviezel in a beard…Di Vinci Code eat your heart out!) and lack the scientific prowess to raise someone from the dead (I did, however, once dumbfound my lab partner in biology class by sketching a penis and balls on the bottom of a leaf and claiming out loud: “Hey, I thought plants don’t have reproductive organs”), I like to believe that, like myself, Jesus was struggling with the puzzlement that accompanies 24-years of age. But Jesus Christ! I don’t have the DNA genome makeup of God and cannot walk on water for the life of me. So what the hell am I supposed to do?
My recent career uncertainty is due to the fact that I have never been much of a risk-taker in life. I was the child bubble-wrapped in padding and helmet who rollerbladed down the driveway with the dexterity of a retail-store mannequin on skates, having to be pushed back to the top by my grandpa afterwards. You’ll never see me put my hands over my head while dancing. And if I’m stuck at a red-light that refuses to change in the wee-hours of the morning with no cars in sight, then I will just sit and wait it out like after taking a laxative. But as any halfway decent psychology major would do, I blame this on my inflexible upbringing.
After emerging from my mother’s womb, I have felt like I have been placed on one of those moving walkways at the airport. Just stand. Hold on. And life will take you where you need to go. From private Montessori schools where I received high markings for my ability to color in the lines with the precision of a seismograph recording after a tumultuous earthquake, to high school where I was worshipped as a demigod for my ability to score 20-points a game, my life has felt very much scripted. As expected, I attended a small, private college up the peninsula for the next four years until graduating Summa Cum Laude in 2007. I regret to say that my college years were not filled with robust excitement, but instead, it felt much like trying to have a conversation with my girlfriend at Red Robin with televisions dispersed amongst the background: I spent so much time looking ahead into the future and getting good grades and bolstering my resume that I did not engage the present moment right in front of me. Then suddenly…BAM! The walkway comes to an end and you are left standing there with a degree in your hand feeling much similar to the first time you have sex (okay, I found the hole…now what?).
But thank god for those career counseling classes and Princeton Review career books I purchased in college! Ah yes, the career courses where you complete personality exams that condense your persona to a word jumble (are you ESTJ or INFP?) and leave you a massive scope of selections from President to priest. Or the contradictory career textbooks with jobs characterized by animated icons of money (average salary level) and angels with wings (social benefit of the profession); with certain jobs distinguished by stacks of money piled high alongside an angel with training-bra size wings, while others possess angels with mighty wings next to the currency you bring to a strip club. Oh, and don’t forget the career counselor/psychic friend my mom suggested. The one who looked into her crystal ball and informed me that I have a super-power that will aid me in my career search (Superman is indestructible, Incredible Hulk has superhuman strength, and me…super sensitivity. It means I cry with the strength of 10 men when I see Titanic. Great)!
Even though at times all may seem lost like the sperm that doesn’t make it to fertilize the egg, I, too, have been swimming around exploring different venues looking for a match. I have tried sales, politics, writing, acting, manual labor, accounting, coaching, psychology, law enforcement. But alas, no luck. My most recent adventure was applying to law school, a noble endeavor that many people advocate as being “honorable” and “prestigious.” However, law school, or not going to law school, has taught me a lot about who I am and what I want out of a job. 1) I am creative. This became apparent during law school orientation when teachers elaborated on the methodical practice of “briefing” a case (or what I like to call “writer anorexia”…writing starved of imagination and creativity) or when classmates walked out of class entranced by the lecture on legal writing and analysis, while I sat the entire time perplexed after my teacher revealed she used to be a gymnast even though she was in a wheelchair (I kept envisioning two balance beams side-by-side).
2) I don’t like fighting. One of the orientation exercises emphasized classification and demonstrated this through the use of fruit and vegetables. The teacher had an assortment of produce that students were meant to organize based on size, shape, color, and fruit versus non-fruit. While I managed to complete this task instantly by placing all the green in one category and colored in another (does that make me some kind of shrubbery racist?), the rest of the class was in an uproar like the tomato had raped the banana (Ah! My super-sensitivity is beginning to act up!).
3) I’m not dumb; I am “divergent.” One final examination that was doled out was a convergent versus divergent test. A convergent test is where you sort through a list of possibilities and converge on the right answer (signified by answers of A, B, C, or D). A divergent test requires you to use your imagination and take your mind in as many different directions as possible. Take the word “brick” for example. While the majority of my colleagues summed up a “brick” as “building things” or “throwing,” I consummated a list including: used to karate chop, put under car to steal tires, used to wipe dog poo off shoe, 2 bricks stacked=missionary, 2 bricks in L-shape=doggy style, finishes sentence to sh** a _____, Rocky Balboa’s dumbbell, if had cement=method of ensuring celibacy for my future daughter, if had 2 connected with rope=poorly constructed nunchucks, when placed up=Earth with an erection, rhymes with my d***, and is somewhere in the top 10 of Things I Don’t Want Dropped on my Testicles.
Now while you may be unsure as to how this all pertains to anything remotely significant (or perhaps you are still flabbergasted by my brick/penile humor fixation…it’s a gift, what can I say), what I am trying to allude to is that being 24-years old is a crappy time, but it is also rich with opportunity and exploration. It is a period to discover what makes you uniquely you. It is a stage of venturing from the ordinary into the unexpected, undergoing many triumphs and defeats along the way. You may work some unfavorable jobs here and there and get rich. Or you may fall in love with a career that earns next to nothing. Who knows? One thing for sure is much like the first time J-dog walked on water, the hardest part is taking that first step into the unknown. And that is the nice thing, because you don’t have to be a savior to do that.
No comments:
Post a Comment