It was the end of October on a Monday morning where I felt utterly lost and spent. All my university life I was planning my way out, thinking as soon as I threw away the student profession, I would be on my way to some grand adventures, on the path of success paved with gold, glitter, and bling.
It wasn’t, to say the least.
Like all the rest of Monday mornings, I woke up at 6.45am after trying to resist the temptation of snoozing the alarm once, and dragged my feet to take a shower and get ready for yet another day at work.
I had a full-time job, quite a well paid one in fact, and I was dragging myself to work.
That was not how I envisioned my first year of working life would look like.
I arrived at my office a couple of minutes passed nine and even though I was late, I was the first one. It reinforced the idea of Monday – of another day at work and another day that I would rather spend elsewhere rather than doing this.
Turning on my laptop, I checked my emails and replied them. After an hour or so, the clear sky was suddenly dark, and a few minutes after, it rained heavily. “Just like Melbourne,” I thought to myself. I reasoned that this was the perfect time to get my hot Grande latte at Starbucks, because, you know, it was Monday morning.
And Monday morning was a good enough reason for you to get your fix.
I went downstairs, and ordered my coffee to the lady in her 20s that had served me countless times for the past two months. I never did know her name. I was not even sure if she recognised me as a regular, despite coming here three times a week.
As I made my payment and sat at the nearest table near the pick-up counter, I wondered what my life had turned into.
I was unhappy and unfulfilled. My mind was constantly thinking about the good old days or the supposedly awesome new ones. My mind, or worse, my heart, was not at present, and I was feeling stuck.
Where did the hype go, I wondered. My entire university years I dreamed of the time when I finally had a real career. And now all I had was a career without passion. To make things worse, it had been just ten months after graduation.
I suddenly remembered about my interview session with the CEO at the place I was working. He was checking out my writings and one of them was titled, “Life after graduation”. On a candid, full of irony and yet perhaps truth note he said, “Life after graduation? You just graduated, what do you know about life after graduation?”
He wasn’t expecting a reply, and I just made a small laugh, trying to hide a little hint of bruised pride in my voice.
Noted, he was more than thirty years my senior and obviously knew more about everything in this life than I did, but in that moment, my fresh graduate attitude made me chuckled silently in my heart, “Well, I’ve graduated. And I’ve lived to tell the tale. I may not know everything, but it is as good as knowing.”
But as it is with everything in life, the more you know, the more you actually don’t.
That morning in Starbucks with my burned hot Grande latte turned out to be one of the turning points in my life. It was when I decided to write this story – the one about an overeager fresh graduate who always rushed to live the next best thing. Similar to all overeager fresh graduates out there, I felt lost, unfulfilled, unhappy, and plainly, I didn’t know what to do.
But coming back to one’s feet starts with accepting that we are indeed, lost.
This is an excerpt from my eBook Swimming with The Sharks, which will be available for download starting on May 23rd, 2014. Join my newsletter list and secure your FREE copy now!
Photo by chiarashine
