So I normally don't post about my personal life on my journal because a) I hate my life and don't know where I'm going or what the fuck I'm doing and am severely depressed and b) this journal is a place of refuge for me to post about, occasionally, what makes me happy (I totally need to post more on that), but mainly this journal is an expression about the only part I (relatively) like about myself: my imaginative and creative side, which is nowhere near what I'd like it to be but oh well.
But I feel like I need to make this post for myself, to symbolize the close of one chapter of my life. Somehow, someway, I ended up in the wealth management field two naive, hopeful years ago. I, a History major. I had no idea what this field was or entailed and simply wanted to work. Plus, I figured it would be better than the only other jobs in my area: restaurants or retail. Let's just say it wasn't a perfect fit. It made me into a miserable, negative and bitter person; it made me feel not only inexperienced but inferior; it made me feel like nothing more than a slave at the beck and call of my masters and of the heartless, financial machine.
It nearly killed the creative side of me, and I nearly let it.
So, earlier this year, I left for a smaller firm. Like an idiot, I imagined that a smaller firm in the same field would be a better fit for me. And boy, was I wrong. Then again, learning from experience is sometimes the best way - the only way - to learn. Not only did I learn how people hide their true cruel and snobbish selves behind kind and grateful masks, spreading lies and sheltering ingrates, but I also realized that not everyone is fit for the wealth management field. I learned that there is a world outside of it (because apparently I had somehow forgotten that). I learned like the lid being taken off my coffin that I need not be buried under mounds of stress and worthlessness and depression.
And now, making this post, getting all this off my chest, I actually feel a whole lot better about it all. And I guess that's what writing is supposed to be: therapeutic.
So, mid-year resolutions, I guess I'll call them:
I will never in my life go back into the wealth management field, or anything finance related for that matter. I will no longer allow the phrase 'misery loves company' to win. I will no longer allow people to think they're better than me or smarter than me or try to make me into a pathetic, deceitful, soulless person. I will no longer let others walk all over me and treat me like a slave and critique everything I say or do down to the smallest, infinitesimal degree. I will no longer let people condition me into believing that there is no way out.
There is a way out and it's called quitting, it's called I deserve better than this, better than you, better than all this stress. I am not flawless. I do not nor should not know the answers to every possible question. I am not impenetrable and I am not nor should not be expected to be emotionless. I am a living, breathing, deserving human being with feelings and aspirations and needs.
And there, I said it.
To all of you out there who hate your job, who know it makes you into a small, worthless, inferior version of yourself, I drink to your health and happiness and pray you can get out.
And to all of you out there who are in the career of their dreams, or who know what they want to do with their lives and are pursuing it currently, you are honestly the most goddamn luckiest people in the world.
Because I still haven't figured it out. All I know is that I love History and writing and creating things and honestly, that isn't much.
So, for now...
To the close of one chapter and the beginning of another.
Thank you.