New Thoughts...

This past weekend I was talking to a friend that is graduating soon. That dreaded "What am I going to do after I graduate?" conversation. The one conversation most soon-to-be college grads do NOT want to have because the answer to that question is 80% likely to be "I don't know." I quickly recognized that I had erred when I heard a sigh of frustration leave escape from her lungs. She certainly still wasn't any closer to making a decision about what she would do after December than she was 6 months ago when we talked about it...and I immediately felt bad for even asking :-/ We began discussing a few different options and somehow ventured to the money topic; a touchy issue for lots of people. Of course money, salary, wages, etc is a taboo topic unless you have a close relationship to the person with whom are talking. In this case, it was ok :-) Throughout our conversation she told about a mutual friend that was offered a six figure salary to work for one of the largest companies, not only in the States, but in the world. And I know these folks are big because I have seen their products in just about every country, if not all of them, that I've visited. 

So I thought about it...$100,000 per year. As a 22-year-old single woman. No kids. No family to take care of. That's a, excuse my French, SHIT TON of money. Talk about balling out. Now, realistically I can't say what I would do because I have never been in that situation. BUT, at this point in my life, unless that contract came with 25 weeks of leave time and a schedule that allowed me to come and go as I pleased, I would have to turn it down. I'm not one to place a lot of importance on money. For one, money is fake. It's something that someone printed up and said, "This is worth 5." It's just an item used to barter. If we wanted to switch to rocks, or pebbles, or something completely arbitrary tomorrow, we could. Money only has value because we put value on it. I could start an entire blog dedicated to all the things in the world that are more important than money. I can't see myself giving up my freedom and flexibility to travel (and not travel for work because that's not the same) for a lot of money. The memories, friendships, etc that I'd make traveling the world vastly outweigh the money I'd make sitting in someone's office working on their schedule. I'll gladly take my 20,000$ per year (after taxes, etc) as an English teacher for the next few years without any complaints. :-) I'm a simple woman. I don't need much, other than a plane ticket...well tickets.

Now of course I don't want to be an English teacher for the rest of forever. It's cool now at 22. And it might even be cool until I'm about 27 or 28. But what's after that. God only knows. When I was at CGIU in April (which I would HIGHLY recommend to any Millennial World Changers out there), the speaker at one of the plenary sessions told us that wanting to be "somebody" is not enough. You have to decide who that somebody is. When I was at CGIU in April I knew exactly who I wanted to be. Now? Eh. Not so much. And I'm okay with that. Back in April I had finalized the business plan for MODEL26 and I just knew I wanted to be the Executive Director forever and ever and ever. However, over the past few months I've learned that I prefer to be in the field. I love helping other students, but I'd rather be volunteering myself as opposed to sitting in an office placing others in volunteer opportunities. I also had the idea that we would raise money to hire full-time staff to run the org, but we're student/youth run right now and it works. It really works! I LOVE it like this. No offense to old folks, of course. Some of our board members are old folks! LOL We love old folks too. I'm leaning toward making it an AIESEC for volunteering where students have control over (almost) everything...which means I don't want to be the ED at like 35. So where does that leave ME? Well, for one as a board member, but I'll have to have a real job right? Well I toyed with the idea of being a senator, but American politics has been really annoying lately. I would be liable to get up and walk away and tell them to shove it. So I don't think that job is gonna work for me. Thought about being a Peace Corps/CARE country director. That would be cool for a few years. I'd like to work for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at some point to with their education/exchange programs. That'd be cool. Speaking of...gotta finish my Fulbright statements for this year. I also wouldn't mind being a Foreign Service Officer. That'd be dope. But definitely not until I'm older. Maybe the Pickering Fellowship will still be around if/when I decide to pursue that. I was a Pickering finalist a few years ago but wasn't ready to go to graduate school immediately after graduation. Yeah, maybe I'll do that. That sounds like a good idea. I know some folks rag on the State Department, but I bangs with the State Department. They do some pretty dope international diplomacy things. Yeah, that's the plan for today (because you know I have to have a plan).  Teach English for a few years. Volunteer at some cool NGO's wherever I am, then go into the Foreign Service to be an ambassador. Public Diplomacy track. That's a good plan for today ;-)

D