By Amir Naveh
All over the internet I’ve been seeing advice pieces for millennials. Idealistic perspectives that make building a career seem like finding a glass slipper. For most people, job hunting isn’t this much of a fairy tale, but more like a pebble in your shoe that you need to get rid of.
Bloggers from all over try to inspire 21st century youth with a number of points, and here’s a few of them:
1. Don't work on making other people's visions of your life come true.
So, 90% of the time, your goal is much farther away than you think. This doesn't mean you should give up, but rather, you should have perspective.
Gaining experience and learning from another person's model to reach their own goal teaches you what might and might not work for you. That experience is equally as valuable as an original idea.
Working in a job, or two, or three, to really understand the avenues of the career, business, or anything really which you want to pursue is navigating your professional career with maturity and foresight. Doing so does not negate your own goals. Daily, as you are learning, you should be moving toward your goals instead of making excuses about not having enough hours in the day. Netflix can wait (Sense 8 is addicting, I know).
Schedule time to work on your passion projects, to research them, to give them a try. Truly, what gets scheduled gets done.
2. Don't take that corporate job.
I get it, corporate environments might not be for you in the long run. But their success didn't come out of thin air. No one is asking you to be a pencil pusher, or get coffee for a tyrannical manager. The liberal arts and the humanities do thrive in corporate environments. People need designers, and communicators, “people” people, salesmen, marketers, creative thinkers--YOU.
I consider it an immensely organic skill to be able to make innovation within boundaries. Watch yourself thrive in things you considered so-called adversities.
3. Listen to your gut.
While your gut demonstrates true instincts, your gut is emotion, often irrational, and totally filled with bile. Let your gut be your compass, but don't navigate through the sea without any guidance at all. Take some advice from people who've been there. Being informed doesn't mean you can't still be jumping-out-of-your-seat-sweating-profusely-gigglingly excited.
Hemingway coined a phrase just for career crises like these. "Kill your darlings" he said. Killing your darlings is the way to forge diamonds-it's the way you carve out an Adonis from the marble. An Adonis with six pack abs, pelvic lines, and a smile your mother would love.
For example, anything that has to do with writing takes the same philosophy (yes, I even edited this piece). I can't speak for everyone, but I am often reluctant to tear apart what I've written. I mean, it's my baby. And I'm a great dad. Though I guess tough love goes a long way, right?
I've come to learn that everything I involve myself in requires killing my darlings. Smashing that sweet pun and writing a better one that's punnier. Wrecking my darling muscles at the gym to grow bigger ones. Crushing my ego by putting myself in a vulnerable situation to actually earn any pride and success. I know that each day, if looked at correctly, is at point zero. And the next can be made to be better than the last.
If I sound preachy, I apologize, it's just that, you're a great listener.
When you’re job hunting, take a step back. Consider your options and your strategy. Life’s maneuvering is like a game of chess. Make your move, queen.
Over and out.