My Employment Bucket List: Revised Edition

A few years ago I made a semi-serious list of mostly entry level jobs I for whatever reason sought to hold at some point in my life. It should be noted that since I made my debut into the workforce at the ripe young age of 17 (proud buffet stocker at Cici’s Pizza after I told my manager I had no intention of speaking loudly enough to be a greeter) I have held approximately four different jobs, and only one of them is on the list (and it’s not Cici’s).

The original list (since you’re all curious now and rightly so) can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/alexa-n-doncsecz/my-employment-bucket-list/83666325513 Keep this one nearby because it will be referenced thoroughly. 

Tonight I accidentally stumbled upon this list, scoffed at my precious naiveté, and killed about an hour creating it’s sequel. Like most sequels, this “revised” list is probably less entertaining than its original, blatantly inconclusive and entirely unnecessary, but I digress. 

1 – I still think it would be cool to work in a movie theater. This questionable aspiration is most likely hanging on by the dwindling thread of my own misconception about what people who work in movie theaters are actually entitled to. For instance, I imagine myself wandering through a sea of film reels (which would probably be more like a disheveled closet full of DVDs in the wrong cases), the constant olfactory seduction of popcorn butter, and catching discreet glimpses of cinematic marvel while simultaneously scolding a delinquent teenager for checking their cell phone. In reality I suppose my experience would be more like waiting for the prolonged departure of that middle-aged couple who has to see all of the credits so I can walk around sweeping dried kernels into my dustpan.

2 – I’m not sure which is more deserving of attention in this revision: the fact that I so longed to share in the known trials and tribulations of waitressing, or the fact that I listed Red Robin among my four most “awesome” restaurants. I also listed Hard Rock Cafe, and I think at the point when I wrote this list I had eaten there like maybe twice. The prospect of wait-staff would be something to revisit if the establishment in question was really cool (yes, cooler than Red Robin, if you can imagine such a place…), but for now I think between the pizza and the popcorn I can willfully check out of food service-related life goals for the remainder of this list. 

3 – Bartending. At least I made the initial clarification that I didn’t have my eye on “those shady back-alley bars.” Although for what is now the second time on this list I have suggested Red Robin as a prime candidate for my employment. I was considerably more fascinated by mixology than I was by alcohol and that remains to be the case now (unlike my unwavering allegiance to Red Robin). I would still like to bartend someday. I still don’t really like alcohol. 

4 – I wanted to work in a cafe and I did, for over four years (if you don’t count the fact that I wasn’t working while I was away at school eight months out of each year), and I distinctly remember always really liking it. Cafes are awesome, and I’ve always thought about opening one. It would be in a fairly low-key city and it would eventually bring the city to life. It would be cozy and homey while at the same time being popular enough to fit the style of different kinds of people. Drinks would be served in glass mugs. And it would be open until 11 because no standalone cafe should ever close before 11. 

5 – I think I wrote this list right before getting hired at Barnes & Noble, which was on the list. So that’s pretty cool.

6 – I still want to teach, but probably only for a short time. I don’t think I’m very good at explaining things and I would need to learn a lot about patience before finding myself at the front of a classroom, but I’ve known for years that if I ever do teach a class I am going to give the comprehensive final exam on the first day. Everyone will be terrified and they won’t know the answers. The next day I will tell the class that it obviously isn’t going to count toward their grade. Then on the last day of class when they take their real final exam, it will be the same test, and when they hand it in I will give them back the one they took on the first day, and they will get to see how much they learned. 

As for the rest of my intended jobs from way back in 2008, I remember where those desires came from and in many cases those parts of me are still the same. I could totally make it as the photographer, but I might do better in keeping it as a hobby. My first ever Genetics test in the fall of 2009 showed me that Genetic Engineering is not my talent nor my passion, and I would totally still be up for being in a band although the fact that it is five years later and I still can’t play any instruments might be indicative that this idea was always, at best, on the back burner. 

I probably won’t be a lifeguard because it is still somewhat apparent when I find myself in more than four feet of water that I was the kid who graduated from middle school before graduating from “water-wings,” and from what I’ve observed of Gordon Ramsay being a chef would be really neat but I literally made my first bowl of pasta on a stove, complete with sauce and seasonings, yesterday. 

Thoughts on Graduation from March 6, 2013

I’ve spent a lot of time in the recent months whining about graduation.

“I’m not ready for it.” “I don’t want it.” “Stop using ‘The G-Word’” is a common command among my senior friends. “The G-Word” is, of course, “Graduation”, and we don’t want to talk about it. The only thing we want to talk about less is what are plans are for after the big day. If we happen to be in the coveted minority who can form a coherent sentence to summarize their future plans, we’re still sick of having that conversation with every classmate, relative, or stranger.

There are moments where I want out, but I will say right off the bat that these moments are few, far between, and almost always follow some form of perceived romantic rejection. More often than not I find myself running away from May 18th in whatever way I can convince myself will be effective. Sometimes I seem to think that avoiding job applications and putting off studying for the GRE will help but I’m starting to think that strategy might be counterintuitive.

Anyway I keep looking at things around my room that represent “college” to me, which is essentially anything around my room that I obtained at any point within the last four years, and torturing myself with the idea that everything good about life is coming to an end. This brand of thinking is unfair and will never make me happy, but in all honesty I do have an incredibly hard time imagining the post-college years being as fun and as fulfilling as my college years have been.

I don’t want to leave these memories, these people. As you get older you realize that every piece of advice an older person ever gave you is true. Because when you’re young their wisdom seems arbitrary. But what you gradually find is that they got it from somewhere, and that every experience that taught them those lessons has a corresponding experience in your own life. You find yourself drawing the same conclusions from a totally different set of circumstances with a similar bottom line, and thinking, I see where they got that one.

They have told me not to waste time being angry or belaboring the small conflicts, but to spend all the time you possibly can with the people you love, because one day your time with them will be over. It will always come out of nowhere and it will always come too soon, but in the end you are left to reconcile with how you spent that time, with whether you should have done more, whether you should have put that disagreement behind you a little bit sooner, because you thought they would be there for as long as you wanted them starting the minute you decided to come back.

I have a time capsule that I put together in August 2009. I put it together just days before I left for D.C. for my first semester of freshman year. It is a shoebox taped shut in the bottom drawer of my dresser with a humble piece of duct tape plastered across the top which reads “Do Not Open Until May 2013” in all the inflexible seriousness associated with having been written in black Sharpie. But I have been pondering its contents and trying to remember what I may have put in it four long years ago, when it feels like my whole life has happened since.

This is where the path ends and from here on out, the road is unpaved. I have options, little paths I can follow, like What That Person Did, or What Most People Do, but ultimately I have to pave my own road now, and I am the only one who can do it. Yeah, I’m terrified, but I’m sure it’s going to be a ride no matter what. And I am confident that when I close the next chapter of life’s book, I’m not going to want 2013 back, or 2012 or 2011. I’m going to want whatever my life has become – 2017, 2020. As much as I want to keep what I have now, I need to have faith that it will only get better from here, that my life will only continue to develop in the great direction that it has started, and that in one, two, four, or twenty years from now, I’m not going to want this back, because what I will have will be even better.

Project Metro

When I started college in DC four years ago I found myself for some odd reason fascinated by the DC Metro system and the unfettered accessibility it affords curious individuals who happen to have a little too much free time. 

It wasn’t long before I made a game out of it like I do with most things in life to keep myself entertained, and thus Project Metro was born. The goal was to visit every one of the 86 stations in the DC metro area sometime before graduation. I also had to get a picture of myself standing in front of each exterior pylon to make it count and to serve as photographic proof of the endeavor’s completion (that part will earn you a lot of weird looks from passers by but I suppose it comes with the territory).

As of April 13, 2013 at approximately 3:22 p.m., the project has been completed. Now I can happily graduate and with any luck I will be as prepared for the real world as I am to tell a bored college kid what there is to do outside of Chinatown and Dupont Circle. 

Holding the #86 sign. This was the last stop visited to complete the project.

Check out the full album here and feel free to keep me updated about your own rapid transit adventures, I’m always looking for new places to check out!

 

I Live By a Few Things…

This is a list of strategies I’ve picked up in my travels. I think one of the biggest misconceptions about lists like these is that the reader often thinks the writer is trying to get people to live by the tips and guidelines on the list. Maybe that is the intention of some people who make lists like these, but that is not the intention of this one. If anything at all, reading lists of other people’s life strategies should only spark you to think of your own, not pressure you to adopt theirs. 

So these are just my thoughts, as well as the first entry I’ve made in this blog in probably close to a year. I’ve been looking for something to get me back on track. These are some things I try to live by. Others are just things that run through my mind rather often in day to day life, so I figure they must play some role in influencing my actions. I ended the list at 22, because that’s…how old I am… 

1. Always say hello. Everything begins with this simple greeting and it can lead to a million different things. 
2. The big things are disguised as little things; the little things are disguised as big things.
3. Be able to recognize when something is gone, and move on accordingly. 
4. “If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire.” -St. Catherine of Siena
5. Whether you were too late, too early, or right on time, life always has perfect timing, and eventually you will understand why it happened the way it did. 
6. The more you are able to see other people as fascinating, the more exciting everyday life will be. 
7. Somewhere inside you there will always be the person you were at your best moment. 
8. “Sometimes when you are not getting the love you want, giving makes you think you will.” -The Time Keeper. I wouldn’t say this is something to live by, but definitely something to think about.
9. We waste way too much time chasing people. If someone wants to be in your life, nothing can deter them; if someone has no interest in being in your life, nothing can convince them. Stop chasing. 
10. “You only feel the weight of the rules you want to break.” Moral code wasn’t intended to be difficult. Wanting to break a moral rule is an indication that our desires our disordered, that we are placing something above God, above love, and that our priorities have gotten into the wrong order. It is a prompt to self-evaluation; they weren’t meant to be restrictions, if our focus is where it should be, we won’t even feel the weight of them. 
11. Never make someone choose between you and something else. You will end up disappointed every time. I’m not saying they will choose the other thing over you every time. This mindset is just setting you up for disappointment, sooner or later. 
12. Everything that happens to you is yours. Tell your stories and learn from them. 
13. “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” A lot of people think this is unfair. That may or may not be the case, but regardless of fair or unfair I definitely think it is true. Meet people. 
14. Confidence is at least half the battle. No matter what you are trying to do, barring ridiculous extremes, if you do it confidently it won’t be awkward. 
15. Show up. Do things. Gain experiences. It puts you ahead. 
16. There is nothing wrong with doing pointless or unnecessary things if they mean something to you, if you find value in them. There is a lot wrong with wasting time, and with only doing what is necessary. 
17. If we bask in the gifts of others and enjoy each person’s talent with them, we will not only be happier, but we will begin to notice we have a heck ton of friends.
18. What you were born to do is the thing you are already doing and have been doing all along. We search long and hard to try and identify the thing we were “made for,” but it is truly what is right in front of us – it is the thing we have been dabbling in since childhood, the thing we are doing in the 20 minute wait between classes, the thing we rush home to do because it is our comfort and what we have always enjoyed. That is what we were born to do, look no further.
19. “You can lead a horse to water…” Forcing people to do things usually doesn’t accomplish anything. People will act a certain way when their own experience causes them to draw the conclusion that it will benefit them to act that way. No amount of dragging someone somewhere will amount to them liking it, unless they come to that liking on their own, but that would have happened with or without having been dragged, and more likely without. 
20. You’ve heard this a million times I’m sure, but when we compare ourselves to others it is totally unfair to ourselves because in doing so we are assuming that the person we are comparing ourselves to has everything we have plus the thing that we envy about them. What we don’t realize is that they probably don’t have everything we have – we would inevitably be giving something up in order to be them. 
21. I’ve been told that writing something every day, regardless of what it is, is “rocket fuel” for success. I’m not sure if that’s true but I like the idea of it. It probably doesn’t have to be writing, either. It just has to be, whatever it is you do. 
22. Bring a friend. 

Escape

At work a few weeks I saw a woman buying a calendar that featured the word “escape” in big letters, accompanied by a photo of an island with a calm ocean and palm trees in front of a clear sky. It made me think of how we are always looking to escape. But what are we trying to escape from, and how will we know when we have successfully “escaped” it?

It is one of those things where we use the concept very generally yet everyone seems to know exactly what we mean. The word is often used in reference to vacations, and it is often associated with a sort of inner peace that must not be prevalent enough in daily life.

It seems that no matter where we are in life, we are always attracted to the idea of an escape. And without it being stated, everyone understands what it is we are trying to escape from. The interesting part of using the word “escape” is that it does not indicate a specific destination. The word escape gives no thought to direction or destination, rather the only idea we get is that the starting place, wherever that may be, is unfavorable.

Something we can gather from this concept of escaping is that it is usually expressed in a moment of high tension. “I need an escape,” rarely comes right after a good evening with friends, or after a long nap, or while sitting on the couch eating ice cream. It is much more likely to follow a long day at work or an encounter with a difficult person, or after returning from the grocery store with several small children.

Also, when we see the word “escape” associated with an image, it is often imposed on a picture of a beach, or a nice landscape or sunset. It is not usually pictured next to a slum, or the inside of a high school building, or a bathroom stall.

So even though there is no implied destination to the word “escape”, there are certainly places that we would and would not like to escape to. And since we never need to specify, “I would like to escape to a remote tropical island, but probably not to a prison cell”, it seems that everyone already has a set understanding of which destinations one might be referring to when they express their desire to escape.

But something else to consider is that “escape” may not even be associated with a geographical location. Sure, some are preferable to others, but perhaps only insofar as some places are more conducive to a certain state of mind that the escapist is hoping to achieve. Because although the type of location we prefer to escape to is understood, the exact place is not. We seem to prefer relaxing environments to stressful ones, but some people would escape to a beach while others would rather escape to the mountains.

Because the precise destination is so variable, in that everyone’s ideal “escape” is different, it can be assumed that some people’s escape destination is filled with inhabitants who just want to escape to someplace else. This brings us to the conclusion that it is almost definitely not a physical place we are headed, but a rare and coveted state of mind.

 

Forgiveness and Forgetfulness

We have an image of what is “dangerous” and we have equated this with “bad” or “wrong”. This has caused us to develop an image of what is “good” that has become way too closely associated with what is merely “safe”.

We now equate good with safe. We are “good” when we obey, when we stay on the path, when we read instead of watching TV and when we sit up straight at the dinner table and mind our manners. Likewise we are “bad” when we argue, when we venture off the trail unsupervised, when we find ourselves educated by sources that are capable of being misused, or when we eat with our hands and get messy.

But good is not always safe. Good can be dangerous. And dangerous can be good. The real man is a warrior, the one who valiantly fights battles, fearlessly embraces adventure, and confidently pursues beauty. The real woman is beautiful, captivating in both word and deed, receptive to what is true and good while being wise to shrink away from that which is spurious and impure.

“Our culture has filled our heads but emptied our hearts, stuffed our wallets but starved our wonder. It has fed our thirst for facts but not for meaning or mystery. It produces “nice” people, not heroes.” –Kreeft

Heroes are not always “nice”. And nice people are not always heroes. Earlier this year I struggled with the difference between being a peacemaker and being a pushover. I wanted to be the former, but I feared that I would not be able identify the distinction before accidentally becoming the latter.

It caused me to think a lot about forgiveness, about what it means to forgive and to forget. Forgiveness is the easy part. Many times we do it quickly because it removes a weight from our own shoulders. To forget is different. When we forgive without forgetting we are entirely capable of doing damage to the offender’s reputation at no expense of our own. We have already taken the load off of ourselves, but we’re not quite ready to stop talking about what they did, or to stop making them pay for it, one way or another.

Failure to forget gives way to vengeance or pride, usually both. What it took me months to realize is that although I forgave an offender instantly, I still had not forgotten. So ultimately it boils down to the question, if one has not forgotten, have they even truly forgiven?

I tend to think that if forgiving someone comes with a feeling of strength such that we are saying to ourselves in the back of our minds as we forgive, “I am the bigger person”, we may have lost sight of what it means to forgive. Because in that moment we are thinking about ourselves, about how good it feels to be rid of the other person’s deed, and about how strong we must be for “forgiving”, which is said to be difficult to do.

If we assume that genuine forgiveness focuses on the other and not on the self, then it probably goes hand in hand with forgetting. Because if our main concern is setting the other person free of their wrongful act, then we will have no problem “forgetting” the act and rejecting the option to hold it against them in the future. So in that sense, if we haven’t forgotten, maybe we haven’t, by definition, forgiven either.

 

 

Wizened or Jaded

I’m thinking about the ones who brag about being jaded like it’s an accomplishment or a coming of age. These people have been hurt and the result is their becoming extremely cynical and untrusting. Their guard is always up, and the problem with people having their walls up like that is not that they fear letting people in, rather the problem is in the sense of pride they achieve from deciding to close someone out. Because of the weakness they have felt in being hurt, they have come to feel at least as much “strength” in ridding themselves of someone they deem “dangerous”.

But the problem with this type of “strength” is that it is not strength at all. In fact it is more weakness, but better disguised than the weakness we tend to recognize. Being honestly hurt is in many ways stronger than overzealously guarded.

Giving our trust to a person and then being let down by that person is not weakness. But bragging about being slow to trust others because we have been hurt in the past is most definitely weakness. It is an excuse not to give of ourselves in the future. Notice I did not say that having a guard to put up when someone truly proves to be untrustworthy is weakness. We all have our set of criteria for what is to be considered “trustworthy” in an acquaintance, and those criteria probably have something to do with whether the acquaintance in question has performed trustworthy or untrustworthy actions habitually over the course of their recent past.

I think most of us can think of someone we know who is constantly talking about how guarded they are. That is what I am equating to weakness. This is not about the people who like to carefully discern their friendships before they disclose important details of their life. That is being responsible. This is about the people who, before you even know their full name and what they like to do in their spare time, manage to sneak into the conversation how hard it is to earn their trust. The ones who are always talking about it as if building those walls were an architectural feat.

The strong are not jaded by their experiences, rather they are wizened by them. The strong are often able to discern when a situation is likely to deliver disappointment, but in general they are strong enough to continue giving of themselves even after having been let down or betrayed. They do not hold past hurts against future acquaintances. They are strong because they trust again. Those who talk big about what it takes to earn their trust should not be mistaken for strong or wise, because wise and jaded are two very different things, and similarly, strength and weakness are two very different things.

With Good Intentions

Today I thought about the elusive nature of “good intentions”. A favorite quote of mine goes, “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions”, and I completely understand this. We don’t sin for the sake of doing something bad. We sin because we see something irresistibly good. We look at something, be it an object, a quality, the affection of another person, and think about how wonderful it would be if we had it, because after all, it is good. We are completely right in desiring it.

Soon this appreciation turns to fear—fear of what we will be if we don’t have it. Then we begin to want it at any cost. Usually that cost involves some form of taking that thing out of turn. In whatever way it can be applied, we take it wrongly. We hurt someone in the process. We do something unfair because we are so afraid that if we do not seize that very moment, the good we found will escape us forever.

It is often said that we live in a world of immediate gratification, but in a way we are not thinking about being gratified “immediately.” We do not say to ourselves, if I do not take this good thing now, I may have to wait five more minutes, or five more years before I see the day where I can take it rightfully. We do not think about such waiting, or about time even. Rather in the depth of our mind and usually without even realizing it we say, if I don’t take this now, I may never have it.

In that way we are thinking in terms of now or never, with no attention given to the time in between. To say we seek immediate gratification might be inaccurate then, because the term “immediate” implies that there will otherwise be a delay. It indicates that we are taking a slight shortcut where, if we were not to be gratified immediately, we would have to settle for being gratified later. But in this now-or-never mentality, there is no later. There is now. Or never.

So when it comes to taking things that are not rightly ours, maybe we don’t absolutely need to have it now. But we think it might well kill us to have it never. And we seem to be losing the concept of everything in between.

Doing something wrong with good intentions is not very difficult. All of our most reputable, shameful, sinful actions are, at the very worst, an attempt to chase after something we see as being irresistibly beautiful. We don’t want bad things. But we are willing to do bad things if we think it will bring us good things. If we think of all our actions in light of being an attempt to fill a deep void in our heart, both our virtuous and vicious acts are drawn to the same end. All that varies is the means.

Which, I suppose, is what raises the question of whether the end justifies the means…

A Found Passage

The following is an excerpt from a passage that I stumbled upon in my reading. I’m not sure as to the exact context of the writer’s struggle, but it seems like an aspect of the human experience that a lot of us can relate to in some form. All I will venture about the source is that it was written by a male in a form of social conflict with a male acquaintance:

“I think there are moments where I still kick myself for allowing myself to spend so much time thinking about it, being distressed about the discord he was causing. The most effective counter for someone so demanding of attention is to ignore them completely, and while I think from his perspective I was effective in making it look like nothing he did mattered, what he didn’t know is how hard it was to make it look so easy, how much effort it can take to make it look like you don’t care.

“A lot of my recent memories are intermingled with his forceful inclusions into the context of my life. And many of my reflective strolls around the city were centered on how I could handle it, how I could be the bigger person in a way that would make him see his childishness which was so blatantly clear to me. I wrote, thought, ate, and slept about conflict, and even when I was strong I was, in that sense, weak.

“The past few months gained its sense of exhilaration by being set against the backdrop of overcoming something. In a much earlier reflection I said that “by writing me off he has set me free.” I was able to feel like the world was mine because someone was so angry with what I thought were righteous actions, I was motivated to continue doing whatever I wanted. I had a mountain to climb over, I had an obstacle to overcome and so I had a daily victory.

“I was winning just by keeping quiet, just by being “strong”, like my temper was a ticking clock and the longer it could keep ticking—the longer it could go without exploding—the more admiration I gained from onlookers. It was overnight celebrity—spotlight gained seemingly by chance, by being in a certain place at a certain time. In that sense he shaped those months, one way or another. He was responsible for the trouble that accounted for a small percentage, and he was responsible for the pride that accounted for the rest.

“But what I ultimately found is that I wasn’t thinking about him and the tribulation he could have caused me, rather what I spent all that time thinking about was that someone presented me with a plot in which I could make myself the protagonist, and my every action revolved around this sort of self-made heroism.”

–source info available by contact

 

 

Driving Crazy

Today while I was driving I got cut off by another model citizen. He was pulling out of a parking lot alongside of the road I was on and simply couldn’t handle the fact that he didn’t have the right of way. Rather than submitting to common sense, he proceeded to insert his large SUV into the tiny gap between my car and the car in front of me, all the while stuffing his face with Doritos and giving me gestures like I was the one being ignorant.

Later on I realized that whenever we hear someone recount a story of an injustice that happened on the road, it is never that person’s fault. Either we only tell the stories where we can easily be seen as the victim, or we paint all our stories in such a way that the other person appears to be in the wrong. Either way, it seems like every driving story we are told sounds something like “I was driving in my lane, minding my own business, when all of a sudden some idiot [insert unimaginable act of stupidity here]”.

This probably has something to do with our individualistic society, where each person is the center of their own personal universe and everyone around them exists simply as an object to be utilized or an obstacle to be overcome. Ultimately, we tend to see the things in our way as just that: things in our way. We fail to see them as things that have their own way, their own purpose for being where they are. It breaks our hearts to consider the possibility that “our way” isn’t exclusively “ours”.

I think most people have a tendency to think in this manner at times, but nothing is more irritating to such a person than encountering another person who sees them as merely a roadside landmark along their own path. For some reason, we do not enjoy looking at ourselves in terms of another person’s world.

Somewhere, the homeboy I met on the road today is finishing his Doritos and telling an embellished tale centered around the ignorant girl who didn’t want to let him onto the main road.

They say there are three sides to every story: that of each person involved, and then the truth which is somewhere in the vast middle. That’s probably truer than we’d like to admit.