Toner Magazine - the Only Choice I Could Have Made by Libby Leonard

the Only Choice I Could Have Made

(( page 3 )) by libby leonard

There is a whole website devoted to this new mental catastrophe: www.quarterlifecrisis.com. When I first heard about it I scoffed, thinking it was for people who wanted some sort of neurosis to make them more interesting. I figured hopping from job to job in search of the right one was something called “not settling for mediocrity.”
I clicked on the member forums. There were post headings like

“What’s it take to be happy?”
“Am I living to fail or failing to live?” and
“Do I need happy drugs?”

I laughed at these people. It seemed like some pathetic belligerent offshoot of an AA meeting. Some idiot started a new religion and now people were flocking to pray.

Then I started my new temp job. I sat in front of a computer for 8 hours a day typing in payroll figures for electricians and janitors. “What does it take to be happy?” I wondered. “Am I living to fail or failing to live?”

Subsequently I decided that all the happy pills in the world wouldn’t keep me from throwing this computer through my cubicle every time I thought how I’d spent sixty-grand to live at home with my parents and work a 9-5 job that primates could handle.

Mostly, I was worried that this was a job I could be stuck doing for the rest of my life—something that I would never let happen, but a scary prospect nonetheless. Then I remembered a masseuse I met the other day. Her name was Amy.

After some light conversation about the weather, I asked her how long she had been doing massage. She was older, and since my parent’s lifestyles both dictated that once you had a job, you kept it forever, I was surprised when she said only five years. She’d spent the twenty years before that in accounting.

“It’s different waking up to something you enjoy,” she said. Thus, she made my entire day.

While the mere thought of doing something I didn’t like for twenty years made me a little nauseous, it was nice to know an adult had proven that you don’t have to be stuck in a job you don’t want. Ever.

She also was the first adult I encountered in my area that didn’t give me that sarcastic “your degree got you real far, I’ll have fries with that by the way” kind of look when I told her that I’d moved home with my Dad. It’s kind of stressful, but I know it’s the only move I could have made.

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There is a whole website devoted to this new mental catastrophe: www.quarterlifecrisis.com. When I first heard about it I scoffed, thinking it was for people who wanted some sort of neurosis to make them more interesting. I figured hopping from job to job in search of the right one was something called “not settling for mediocrity.”

I clicked on the member forums. There were post headings like

“What’s it take to be happy?”
“Am I living to fail or failing to live?” and
“Do I need happy drugs?”

I laughed at these people. It seemed like some pathetic belligerent offshoot of an AA meeting. Some idiot started a new religion and now people were flocking to pray.

Then I started my new temp job. I sat in front of a computer for 8 hours a day typing in payroll figures for electricians and janitors. “What does it take to be happy?” I wondered. “Am I living to fail or failing to live?”

Subsequently I decided that all the happy pills in the world wouldn’t keep me from throwing this computer through my cubicle every time I thought how I’d spent sixty-grand to live at home with my parents and work a 9-5 job that primates could handle.

Mostly, I was worried that this was a job I could be stuck doing for the rest of my life—something that I would never let happen, but a scary prospect nonetheless. Then I remembered a masseuse I met the other day. Her name was Amy.

After some light conversation about the weather, I asked her how long she had been doing massage. She was older, and since my parent’s lifestyles both dictated that once you had a job, you kept it forever, I was surprised when she said only five years. She’d spent the twenty years before that in accounting.

“It’s different waking up to something you enjoy,” she said. Thus, she made my entire day.

While the mere thought of doing something I didn’t like for twenty years made me a little nauseous, it was nice to know an adult had proven that you don’t have to be stuck in a job you don’t want. Ever.

She also was the first adult I encountered in my area that didn’t give me that sarcastic “your degree got you real far, I’ll have fries with that by the way” kind of look when I told her that I’d moved home with my Dad. It’s kind of stressful, but I know it’s the only move I could have made.