Delaying the Real World

I am not sure if I mentioned this in an earlier entry or not but since it holds relevance to my life for the time being, I think it will be appropriate for me to highlight it once again.

Last winter, after I returned to school after breaking for a year, an old collegue of mine hit me up to say hi because she was in town to do recruiting for UBS from our school. When we met up for dinner, she had mentioned to me that she was very unhappy working at UBS even though she had a more than decent paycheck. She discussed with me just how unfulfilled she had become especially after working her ass off in school (homegirl graduated with a 4.0 from a top 25 school...go head gangster! lol). She was so unfulfilled that she was wavering between whether or not she should make a drastic career change or stay where she was.

Anyone who knows me should know that I am a strong advocate for "doing you" and pursuing the peace and happiness and whatever that means to you. So I told her that if she was not happy then she should save up some money, quit her job, and dive right into whatever her heart desires as long as it did not impede on anyone else.

Around that time, I also accidently ran across this book called Delaying the Real World by Colleen Kinder. It is a real life account of the author's, a Yale graduate, life after graduating. As the description from the book website states:

"Congratulations—you’ve finished school. But if you’re not sure you’re ready to settle down into an office environment, Delaying the Real World is chock-full of creative ideas and practical information that will help you craft your own life-changing adventure:

In this one-of-a-kind guide, Colleen Kinder scouts out experiences that will not only satisfy your free spirit but also pay the bills, make the world a better place, and maybe even catapult you into a future career.

Including stories from young adventurers and detailed information on making these dreams a reality, Delaying the Real World is a road map for the new graduate, inspiring and directing you toward making your twenties the most rewarding (and adventurous) decade of your life."

I ended up buying the book off of Amazon and sending to my friend as a gift. She told me that the book was very useful. Shortly thereafter, she quit her big paying Fortune 500 job, moved to New York City, and began doing teaching research since she always had an interest in counseling (I think that is what she said she was doing now). I have posted the link to the website below:

Delaying the Real World Website

Sooooo, how is this relevant to my current situation? Well I am finally about to graduate from school. I have definitely overstayed my welcome and now it is time for me to start making some decisions. Unfortunately, after interning at Harrah's in Vegas for the summer, I realized that I want to steer my career down another course.

As I think I mentioned in other entries, even though I did very very well at Harrah's and even though I would have good pay and benefits, I quickly learned that being a well oiled piece to the corporate robot is just not for me. It is very unfulfilling and there is definitely more to life.

With that said, I have been working with my career advisor to help me find some direction. I definitely have a plan of action. However, I am generally a very unsettled person and am not quite ready to settle into the 9-5 routine. I definitely not a shirker of responsibility. If that was the case, I would not be about to graduate from Carnegie Mellon. The reason for me being so driven is so that I can afford the life of being free-spirited and adventurous. The reality of it is, that even if I have a big paycheck...I would then be fighting against time. If I want to create the life that I ideally want for myself, I am going to have to take some risks and get off the straight and narrow.

I am currently making plans to go to Ghana for the summer. I initially was going to go to Italy since I am currently learning Italian but, I think a summer trip to Ghana may prove more rewarding. An old aquaintance of mine had went to Ghana and said that he had a really, really good time. He highly reccommended the trip. I still may go to Italy for the summer. It all depends on money. More than likely, Ghana will be a cheaper trip but there is more funding available for Italy. We shall see.

But I have decided that I will delay the real world and live the free-spirited and adventurous life that I have always dreamnt about. There are alot of opportunities out there to travel and see new things and I plan to take advantage of as many as I can.

One of the problems that I face is the personal doubt that I have of myself. But it is so miniscul that it does not really matter. The second problem is that sometimes I waver between satisfying my outward desires versus my inner needs. By delaying the real world in Courtney's way, I may run the risk of giving up personal relationships. Even though there is no doubt that I will inevitably meet new people, I would be living a life surrounded by acquaintances. It would be nice to have a partner in crime. By that, I do not neccessarily mean a significant other. If I do decide to dive right in and really do what I am passionate about (which is traveling), maybe I'll meet my partner in crime on one of my trips.

Well this is the plan for now....but you know me, sudden changes can occur with the drop of a hat.

Ghana in No Reservations