So I have some news, and it’s probably going to freak my parents out a little bit…I decided to turn down the full-time job offer that I mentioned a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n
The company is great, they treat their employees well, I got along well with everyone there–so why not take the job?\u00a0 Because it wasn’t helping me make progress toward my long-term goals, it wasn’t teaching me any new or useful skills, and it wasn’t in a field where I’d like to make a career.\u00a0 After weighing the benefits vs. the costs, especially the opportunity costs, it just didn’t make sense to stay.<\/p>\n
I know what a lot of you might be thinking: “Dude, a job’s a job.\u00a0 In this economy, you should take it and count yourself lucky!” I reject that, though.\u00a0 Last year, I managed to cut my expenses to less than $950 per month.\u00a0 I’ve been saving up my paychecks, and I’ve got enough to float me for a couple of months until I find a job that fits better, hopefully part-time.<\/p>\n
The big thing I’m worried about is whether I’m digging myself into a hole.\u00a0 Since graduating in April 2010, here are the jobs I’ve held:<\/p>\n
So yeah, nothing all that great.\u00a0 I’ve been doing some volunteer stuff in the interim, though, especially with Leading Edge<\/em> and the “class that wouldn’t die” article from last year.\u00a0 But in general, it feels like I’m getting stuck in a rut, and that the longer I stay stuck, the harder it’s going to be to break out.<\/p>\n What I really<\/em> want is something that will expand my mind and\/or give me another major cultural experience.\u00a0 That’s why I’m thinking seriously again about teaching English abroad.\u00a0 But grad school is definitely another attractive option, especially if it gives me a chance to work on my Arabic.<\/p>\n With that in mind, here are the options I’m considering right now:<\/p>\n The main goal, of course, is still to go full time with the writing career.\u00a0 That’s like the holy grail.\u00a0 I’m still optimistic about that; it’s just a matter of finding something useful to do in the interim.\u00a0 The last thing I want is to settle, or to get stuck in a comfort zone, or lose sight of my long term goals…<\/p>\n …I don’t know.\u00a0 I’m still figuring all this stuff out.\u00a0 But regardless, I just don’t think working full-time at an unskilled labor job is going to get me anywhere–and that’s an opportunity cost I can’t afford to take.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So I have some news, and it’s probably going to freak my parents out a little bit…I decided to turn down the full-time job offer that I mentioned a few weeks ago. The company is great, they treat their employees well, I got along well with everyone there–so why not take the job?\u00a0 Because it… Continue reading Difficult choices and keeping perspective<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[89,90,30,495,625,149,387,312],"class_list":["post-6098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-career-decisions","tag-graduation","tag-life-decisions","tag-teaching-english-abroad","tag-the-economy","tag-the-middle-east","tag-the-real-world","tag-work","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-1Am","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6098"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6102,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6098\/revisions\/6102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n