Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Maybe It's Not So Bad After All...


I've been having somewhat of a crisis as of late... unable to determine what my lot is in life. Often, I feel as if my double-degree in Marketing & International Business is more useless than R. Kelly in a room full of 40 year-old women. I mean, what exactly am I supposed to be doing? Should I be going door-to-door with Jehovah's witnesses? Should I be the guy that gets your bowling ball un-stuck? Or should I be wiring your next house for you? I really don't know, but I know that I have to learn the difference between what I'm good at and/or have the capacity to learn and what it is that I actually love/want to do.

I love language... particularly those of the romance variety. I've studied French, Spanish and Italian -- and was a semester shy of starting Portuguese. I've also learned the English language pretty darn well over the years. I'm good at math -- but I suppose I'd have to be, otherwise I'd be the worst insurance underwriter in the history of mankind (not to mention my mother is the assistant manager of a bank and my father was an engineer). I'm a passable salesperson (isn't that what all Marketing majors are encouraged to do?) but I hate it more than those GEBCO commercials... which I suppose J.O. can film in abundance, now that he's retired.

Anyway, I'm going to keep working on figuring out this thing they call life. I predict that I'll find my way back to D.C. someday where I will trot the globe doing something fancy for the World Bank, IMF or some other international outfit with a sweet name or sick initials. I mean, I doesn't IMF almost sound bad-ass until you actually find out what it represents? Seriously, just imagine this convo:

Guy: Yo, Abe! What you up to these days?
Abe: I'm working for the IMF, muthafucka!?!
Guy: Oh shit, word? What is that?
Abe: The INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND, kid! What you know about that shit?
Guy: Oh. That's... hot. Yeah. So.... nice seeing you, anyway. Later.

Perhaps that's just my imagination, anyway. It runs away from me on occasion. Either way, I'm pretty sure that conversation could've gone better for me.

So how did I choose my majors, you ask? Well, as I stated before I like language... and I like trying to figure out how people's brains work. So I thought I found a decent combination. Perhaps I did, but something tells me that I missed the mark because Marketing figures out the human mind for the sake of circumventing naturally-occurring mental safeguards for the sole purpose of selling something. As for International Business... well, most companies just tend not to care. At least I have articles like this one to soothe my trouble mind & soul. Perhaps I'm not alone...

First thing that came to mind after reading that is: Thank goodness I'm agnostic, can't paint and don't smoke cigarettes. I've been considering a Master's degree, but I'm damn sure not wasting thousands upon thousands of dollars on yet another worthless sheet of engraved paper. I want to truly figure myself out and proceed accordingly. Any advice?