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Originally Posted by Johnny Gnar Gnar
Do you ever just have one of those grand moments when you realize... wow... I have absolutely no plans for my life, and I am spiraling further down the rabbit hole of self doubt every day? Well, I've been there for quite awhile, and am getting very, very sick of it. Grrrr. I guess that is the wonder of graduating college, you have a piece of paper, yet no marketable skills, at least not in a job you would like to do. Grrrr and shaking fists and whatnot.
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I have a sneaky suspicion that in your case it has been because you have been LIVING life, rather than planning to someday. Those with "life plans" and "five year plans" that actually seem to follow them aren't really living.
"Marketable skills" are for the birds. Apply for a job in which you have no experience, but you think your skills, talents and interests would fit. That's how I ended up getting some of my most interesting jobs. (And a few that sucked, to be honest, but I still learned something and what to avoid in the future)
I didn't know how to run a CNC machine when I applied at Ruger. I didn't know how to work on cars for my first mechanics' job. I didn't have any kind of degree or previous lab experience for the industrial lab tech position I got. I didn't know how to run a restaurant when I started managing one. Yet, I succeeded in each of these things. None of them are things that I would want to do forever, but they got the bills paid. Now I'm a delivery driver, but it allows me time to write and put stuff together for building a sustainable lifestyle, and developing travel opportunities. I'm not there yet, but I'm a hell of a lot closer than I was two years ago.
Don't confuse a job with your lifes' dreams. A job is time you trade in order to accomplish those dreams. A few lucky souls have hit upon ways to combine the two. Usually they do this by thinking "you know what, I know I have to do some sort of "x" to get the bills paid, but, damn it, I WANT to do "y"! I think I'll go ahead and start on "y", I'll still do "x" for now, but I'll build "y" up until I don't have to do "x" anymore."
We don' t hear about these folks until the local paper runs an article on the chick who runs the pottery shop, or the TV special on the guy who builds hot rods for a living, or the couple who own the colorado river raft guide business. We don't see the time before hand, when the pottery chick was waiting tables or answering phones, or when the hot rod guy was selling insurance, or the river raft guides were a financial planner and a computer programmer.
Try for a job you think you can sustain for a while that will challenge you just enough, and then start working on what you WANT rather that what your degree says you should do. It might be that the first step in doing what you want is deciding what that is.
For me, there are several things, some of which I can integrate together, and some of which have to be done sequentially. I try to follow through on the opportunities that are there, and keep my eyes open for other things I'm interested in at the same time. For instance, I can't afford (in time or money) to go to engineering school right now, but I can teach myself AutoCAD, and study the physics lectures from the library, and work on my invention ideas. I can't continue my blacksmithing right now, I need to get a forge built, but I can work on my stone sculpture, while keeping an eye out for the components necessary to build the forge. I can't afford to buy eighty acres out in the wilderness and build my off-grid, self sufficient home yet, but I can save for a motorhome to live in, so we can start saving money for land instead of paying exorbitant rent, and so we will have something to live in while we are building.
Anyway, I know you'll get it figured out, and go ahead and apply for the things you want to do, don't feel limited by a piece of paper. Obtaining it was a learning experience, not a limiting, life-defining thing. It just shows you are smart enough and determined enough to get through school. You CAN follow your dreams, even if you have to find a slightly more unconventional way to do it.
/end overly long, rambling rant*