The Costume Shop of Job Searching

First off, Happy (belated) Halloween! Hope everyone had a great time this weekend in all your garbs and guises.

Halloween is always so much fun because it's one night where you can be somebody else. Ever notice how different the atmosphere is at a costume party from a regular night out? It's because there is something so simply liberating about being in disguise. You can be anyone you want; you can act out of the norm without feeling the self-consciousness you feel in your daily attire. What confines we put ourselves in!

This whole idea of being freed by the masquerade made me start to think about some of the guises we slip on during our daily routine. So remember what I mentioned in my "Home... is Where I Wanna Be" post when you feel like your parents or childhood friends don't know the whole you anymore? Well, it's kind of like that. You feel like you are almost confined to a certain version of yourself when you are around certain people: teachers, parents, grandparents, friends, boy/girlfriends, the kid who sells you your morning coffee... And, if we are subject to different versions of ourselves based on the people we choose to surround ourselves with, then wouldn't the same thing go for which graduate program, city you live in, or job you choose to take?

Try looking at it this way: it's weird to think about when you have only been out of college for less than a year, but your profession is something you use to define yourself. For example, a year ago, when someone would ask me to tell them a little bit about myself I would say: "My name is Christina Garofalo, I am a student at Muhlenberg College, and I live at the Jersey Shore."  Now there is usually further conversation where you'd get to know more about one another, but the launching pad for that further conversation is rooted in those first three introductory points.

You've all gotten it before, the: "Oh, my cousin went to Muhlenberg. What a small world!" or "Where about on the Jersey Shore do you live? I have a beach house there." The frequency that this very same conversation has happened over mine, and probably most of your lives is unreal. It becomes almost a recording. That alone should tell you, if not urge you, to realize how important the career and life choices we make and how they reflect on who we are.

Which leads me to my next point: to settle for a career that does not fulfill you will ultimately affect the way your define yourself and the attitude with which you define yourself. And what does that mean? A major identity crisis. So, let's spare ourselves the mental breakdown at age 45 because we've realized that we took the road so highly traveled that we've been stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic for the last 20 years. Instead, why not take the time now, while we are young and can still afford to be a bit selfish, and experiment? Let's use this time to try on as many different personae as possible, and from there, we might actually learn something worthwhile about what kind of career might make us happy for the long haul.

In light of my Portland, OR craze, my friend Carly lent me a book called Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon by Chuck Palahniuk. The first line of the book says, "Everyone in Portland is living a minimum of three lives,' says Katherine Dunn, the author of Geek Love. She says, 'Everyone has at least three identities... They're a grocery store checker, an archaeologist, and a biker guy... Or they're a poet, a drag queen, and a bookstore clerk."

As if I needed more reason to love this city, here it is -- the proof of my theory, along with some relief in its truth. We are all constantly trying to imagine some more sophisticated version of ourselves working in different jobs -- imagining what our lives would be like if we were a copy writer, social worker, lawyer, psychologist, teacher, etc. -- and judging what we should do by what we can "see ourselves" doing.  But how accurate is that really?

Every person has interests, hobbies, and talents outside of their profession. And of course, the ideal situation would be to get paid for our hobbies, but that can't always be the case. I mean, the likelihood of you making a living off of your coin collection is minimal. So instead, I'm led to believe that the best we can do is to imagine which of these jobs best compliments the other important aspects of our lives.

Maybe the most important things to you are to be able to provide a comfortable life for your family and to help people. If this is the case, health care might be the perfect track for you then. I write poetry, prose, and short fiction; so I might think of what kinds of jobs would enhance my writing versus which might stifle it. From exploring different options and ideas, I learned that the only things that make me fulfilled are creating (art, poetry) and helping people. And though it's very broad, it's a start.

See if you can take some time to figure out which types of things make you feel like you've done something worth your while. From there, start to try on different professional personae, and when you find one that might fit, go for it!

Last week, I had coffee with my dad and talked to him about all of what I'm talking to you about. I told him all my ideas, the things I learned that I like, and what I need to have a shot at fulfillment. He mentioned that my uncle might be able to help. So they spoke, and then I reached out to him via Facebook. My uncle Robert is a physician in Chicago. He told me he has a number of connections and might be able to help me find a job out there. The prospect of moving to a new city, let alone Chicago, was exciting enough. But, to have a good job out there could be just what I need.

We still have to talk in some more depth, but a possibility could be something like grant-writing for a nonprofit medical clinic. And while grant-writing isn't very creative, it could make for a more well-rounded writing resume and it would qualify as "helping people" on my musts for fulfillment. And, as a writer, I have found that I have more of an impulse to write (creatively) when I am intellectually stimulated by those needs.


While nothing is final, and the details still need a lot of working out, it is at the very least something to look forward to and get my spirits up. And if it doesn't work out, I figure I can always be a poet, a drag queen, and a bookstore clerk.

Have a great day everyone!