365 Days Later

My graduation dress is a little over year old today. I remember the first day I laid my eyes on it. It was one of those moments when you just knew, that yeah, this is the one. Obviously it wasn’t my first choice, not by far, had to try on a whole lot more dresses before I found the one that fit in all the right ways. It’s kind of like life really, something which I have learnt over the past year. Sometimes what you really want isn’t exactly what you get or what is good for you. You have to try on a few more ‘dresses’ until you find the right fit! Since graduation I have had a total of 3 different jobs before I found the right fit for me. It sounds like a lot doesn’t it, but it’s actually not. Let me start from the beginning.

Like every fresh graduate out of uni I was more than hopeful that I would almost immediately get a job. Even in the dire economic climates, I expected to be unemployed for at most 2 months before I landed my perfect job. After all I did go to a top tier school and had a decent degree, it just made sense. I wish I was able to better articulate the unemployment experience. If there was ever a time that I doubted myself, it was definitely then. Low self-esteem, doubt, depression, you name it, I had it all! On top of all that I felt immense pressure not just from my family but from the community as a whole. How could I, the smart girl with a UK degree just stay at home doing nothing? It seemed unheard of. But stay I did, for a whole 2 and a half months. By then my measly savings were dwindling and I needed a plan fast!

That’s when I landed my first job. It had a fancy title; Financial Advisor, but all it really entailed was selling insurance product, a job anyone with a form 5 certificate could do. I don’t mean to offend or insult any form 5 certificate holders but after five years of university I felt that there had to be more. To say it was a crappy job is to say the least; I loathed it. By the time Christmas break rolled around I was done with it. I never went back in January. My mother of course was livid! I had quit a job to come stay home! She didn’t understand the logic but she let me be. So again I began another stint of unemployment. The next two jobs I got weren’t any better. Either I didn’t get along with my colleagues and superiors or I wasn’t happy with the work I was doing. Either way I didn’t stay long. It was only early this year in March that I landed an unexpected job that changed everything. It had virtually nothing to do with what I had studied but somehow it worked. I was happy to wake up every morning to go to work. Moral of the story; life after graduation never works out as expected but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I am quite happy with how things have turned out and are looking forward to how my life will continue to unfold.