University drawing to a close

The end is in sight, and I can feel the cogs slowing down despite being amid the deadline crunch. For many of us approaching our final deadline, thoughts about packing up and moving back home are on repeat when you wake up and before you go to sleep - something I'm pretty apprehensive about. 

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Adding to this is my lack of securing a job to walk into after descending the stage steps at graduation, Dawn French coin in hand (the only reason any Falmouth student graduates). I feel like reprimanding myself for not having started the job search still, but the truth is:

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I don't actually know what it is I want to do yet.

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You sign up to university bright eyed and bushy tailed, sights set on a solid career in three years’ time. Chances are, if you didn't walk into university with a specific job in mind, you'll leave with the same cluelessness, only now you know exactly what you don't want to do.  Fantastic news of course mates landing jobs already in the industry add to the burden of, what feels like, incompetence. Endless scrolling on LinkedIn and Indeed are proving fruitless in my quest to find inspiration. Around 11 pages deep one time on LinkedIn I suddenly remembered speaking to an older cousin when I was in year 7 or 8 telling her how I still had no idea what I wanted to do when I was older, and her telling me she was in the same position, and she was just about to finish university - I thought it was impossible; I was wrong.

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At the same time, I feel I need a break from work that requires a lot of brain power. Talk of burnout has been slowly trickling into mainstream media. Dawn Foster wrote an article in the Guardian back in January about millennial burnout that sheds a new light on how employers demand more in this age of multitasking, and 'one can do it all' attitude especially apparent in the creative industry, where a photographer should be able to film and edit video, write articles, create budget plans, archive, climb Mt Everest in 30 minutes – you get the gist – and of course I have 15 years of experience at the age of 20. After three years of constant output, I feel a shop assistant job is needed. Admittedly we do get long breaks, but term time is a blur of stress in all forms and expectations. 

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Humans have yearned after meaning to their life since the notion of a 'job' came to be. In the Japanese Heian period, between 794 to 1185, the Ikigai concept started to emerge. Often explained using a Venn diagram, Ikigai is the pursuit of reason, your reason for being, and your reason to wake up in the morning. Meaning is comprised of four sections: What you’re good at, what you love, what the World needs, and what you can be paid for. All four need to be met to ultimately be happy, stable, and comfortable. The idea is that this enlightenment comes to you naturally, and seeking it out leads to dead-ends, something I found out after racking my brain trying to make my own diagram by replacing the words with what they meant to me. What does the world need though? How is my job going to aid the human condition?

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The thing to remember is: nothing last forever. If you decide the job you find yourself in isn’t giving you the satisfaction it once did, you can always start again. Trained legal workers become potters, pilots become jazz musicians, and artists’ become support workers. Going back to university or college later in life shouldn’t be daunting, but a welcome backup and even exciting. Trust that your life’s purpose will come at some point, most likely when you give up trying to force it.

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Although watching people go through a mid-life crisis might be amusing; behind the skinny jeans, new car, and hair dye is someone coming to the realisation that what they once thought was their Ikigai is now the reason they want to stay in bed. Even when we think we have realised exactly what it is we want to do, it might only be temporary - 30 years down the line we might find ourselves in skinny jeans once again.