The Irony of Life
02. Mar, 2010 
6 Comments
I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who has gone though this, and maybe if you’re reading this you haven’t experienced such a wave of irony and dissatisfaction, but chances are you will feel it after reading this post so…umm…sorry?
I have recently found myself having feelings of dissatisfaction and resentment towards the way the world works…now let me narrow that down a bit since I’m sure there’s many ways the world “doesn’t work”. What I mean is the whole goal of life society has for us. When we’re young we’re put in school until we’re 18 or so, this preps us for the ‘real world’ but what we’re really getting ready for is deciding on our career, in order to accomplish most of these career aspirations we need to go to more school (university, college, etc.) once we’re done that we make our way into the working world, trying our hardest to make all of that education we received work for us and using it to gain experience and entrance into the jobs we think we want. Once we get there we work our whole life to save money so we can retire and enjoy the last few decades before we die. Do you see my problem?
We work our whole life towards a career that we’re often times doing just so we can make money to retire to enjoy life…so why does our society have things set up so that the only life we’re given is used to work 8 hours/day 5 days/week for the majority of our life so that we can only enjoy the last bit of it when we’re old and tired and possibly not capable of doing anything we want to do anymore?? Why are we spending the best years of our life working so hard towards something that’s just the means to an end??
Hopefully you will excuse my ramblings here, but these realizations are really quite frustrating. This is the reason why I want to be happy in my career, because I’m going to be doing it for the majority of my life and if you get to the point where it’s not fun you’re going to be miserable for so much of it until you retire! Unfortunately, so many people are not happy with their career. In my opinion, people aren’t happy because so often they’re rushed into a career they may not like because at age 18 they have to make decisions as to what they want to do the rest of their life so they can study and prepare for it (as now it takes at least a masters to get most jobs) or they’re rushed into it because they need the money to pay for the basic necessities of living!
So, where is this all coming from? Well, as I said before, this is the reason I want to enjoy my career, the problem here is the job I think I want requires me to be in school at least until I’m 30 (why so late you may ask? First, because I need to get a PhD for the job I want and second because I changed degrees 3 times as out of high school I had no idea what the real world was like and so no idea what I wanted to do in it). Once getting out of school it’s another thing, trying to gain experience so that I can actually work in the setting I want to and making my way up the career latter to get to the top so I can make the big bucks and retire ‘happy’…right? Well, it doesn’t end there, my other frustrations lie in the fact that the 7 + years of schooling I still need to do is taken up by things like research and studying of a vast array of topics so that I can find my niche. While I understand why this may be important to some, the fact that it’s standardized this way leaves the people who already know what area they wish to specialize in frustrated as they have to complete a large assortment of classes they don’t need in the end for the career they want which also may bring down their overall marks making it harder for them to get into the school they wish to go to. And of course most of the jobs won’t end up taking into account how much you know about any one particular subject, but instead just look at the initials at the end of your name and the letters on your transcript; because to the world, it’s not important what you think you can do or how passionate and good you are at it just as long as you have the degree.
In a way university has a tendency to kill people’s passion for the work they want to do because it’s too generalized. This is why I often regret not going to a community college as they at least specialize in certain careers and help you get on your way in only a few years. The problem with this is the career I want isn’t really part of the community college curriculum, and even if it was unfortunately people don’t seem to value a two year degree (which indecently focuses more on your degree and gives you hands on experience) over a Masters or PhD (which generalizes and worries far too much about research and book learning).
In the case of clinical psychology (my end goal) I understand the need for a large amount of knowledge on various things however there’s more to it than getting the right letter grades and universities don’t seem to take much other than that into account. All this pressure and frustration is enough sometimes to make me want to give up and forget about the PhD and just do some job that doesn’t require me to be in school for the majority of my life so that I can just start paying off my student debt, but I keep thinking if I end up doing a career that’s less satisfactory to me in the end I’ll just end up depressed and needing to seek counselling.
Isn’t that ironic?
About The Author
Allison I think you have to remember that good education provides opportunities to many jobs and even though you think some of your courses are not necessary for your goal, any education is valuable. You don’t know where you’ll use the tidbits. Just having struggled through with so many others in university courses helps you understand those individuals better. Also, most jobs have room for advancement so remain a challenge. Don’t forget that LIFE happens throughout those work years and so much fun with it! Hang in there!
Yeah see this is why I have decided to be poor and travel the world. Write books in my spare time and feed off the little money that comes from publishing said books as well as working my way across the world through random jobs.
What seems frustrating is the fact that the world is set up so that you need money to have a good life, and that’s what we’re really taught from a young age.
Once you come to terms with giving up having a monetary and rich life you can just start enjoying it.
You both make some really good points.
Mary: you’re right about the fact that life does happen during all of this, and that’s a really good thing to remember.
Ethan: I think what you’re doing is awsome and sounds like SO MUCH FUN (so I am currently living vicariously though you lol). It’s frustrating the way the world is set up to revolve around money, you’re right, but I think we’re slowly opening our eyes to the fact that money isn’t everything…although it does help when you need to eat and sleep somewhere…but then again that’s also where friends come in lol
Thanks for the comments both of you!
Although I do value education (I’ve encountered too many ignorant people), what I hate is that I have to pay to learn. There’s something very wrong with paying 800 dollars for one class, where all you do is meet once, write a paper, and hand it in at the end of term. That’s just…wrong.
Essentially, we just pay for the degree, regardless of how well we did, the certificate of a B- student costs the same as an A+ student. So if the certificate is worth the same, why do people put more value on higher grades? Grades are completely useless. Most exams don’t reflect what you actually know anyway, and maybe the TA that marked it was drunk, or distracted, or in a bad mood. You can’t compare grades, it just doesn’t matter.
Allison,
I could not relate more! Now my frustration lies in the notion of education as well. In high school you are taught that you cannot survive without the B.A or B.Sc. So you head out to get those degrees. Then when you get there you find out there there is so much more than just though degrees. Nonetheless, you stick through it and get, in my case, the B.A. You then graduate, expecting to be able to get your dream job after 4 years of really hard work… but nope… you can now do only one thing with it… pur two letters next to your name. (wow eh?). So yeah, they taught you skills, but that’s about it. What also frustrates me is the other side of it, as my boyfriend is now having a hard time finding a job (although he has great work experience) as he does not have that capability to put those significant letters next to his name. But here’s the kicker… when I talked to my prof about the rough aspect for my bf he said “Most employers don’t verify school, so just tell him to write that he got something like a B.A or something” Now, he’ll remain nameless as I am sure some of you may want to hurt him or society as a whole… but what’s the point of spending upwards of 40,000 for those four years if you could just fake it and basically doesn’t really give you anything?! Grrr, it drives me nuts. But then again, I’m doing another bachelor’s degree now… so maybe I didnt learn.
There’s my rant for the day. Thanks for sparking my interest.
Wow, you guys, I couldn’t agree more (obviously lol).
Gina: It’s really funny that you mentioned about how grades don’t reflect what students know as I was def toying with the idea of writing about that in a blog, because we all know it’s so true but it seems as though universities can’t find any other way to analyze our abilities …which seems funny as they do studies on every other thing under the sun…
April: again, I was totally knodding my head along with what you were saying about your boyfriend not being able to get a job with all the work experience. It’s as though we have to get both work experience and amazing marks in order to do anything now, and honestly that either takes forever becuase you have to get education and then volunteer to get the experience since no one will hier/pay you without it or else you effect your grades while you work at the same time as going to school to get the experience and then can’t spend as much time studying…egh…