Is it tea time?

The more I grow accustomed to the rat race, the more I anticipate Friday afternoon and the more I dread Sunday evening. This particular Sunday evening was no exception. Two good friends of mine came over to mourn the end of another weekend and we got to talking about the monotony of working a full-time, nine to five job.

“It’s amazing how much time out of each day is devoted to work, Monday through Friday. A whole eight hours! When I get home at night, I barely have the energy to do anything else,” my friend Carolyn whined.

“I know. It sucks,” I whined back.

“All I want to do is sit on my couch, drink tea, knit, read, and journal,” remarked Rachel.

“Ooooh. I love tea!” I said, in agreement.

After my friends left for the evening, I got to thinking about the irony of our statements. I vividly remember the excitement we expressed to one another when we accepted our current working positions. But somehow, months later, we found ourselves tired and cranky.

The scary part is that we are having this conversation and we are only twenty-three years old! It’s kind of ludicrous for any of us to be fed up with adulthood yet because we’ve hardly entered it. Now, don’t get me wrong…I enjoy my job. I get paid a decent salary to interact with people, travel the state, and learn important things about the field of education so honestly, I have very little room to complain. I’d say that Carolyn and Rachel enjoy their jobs as well, but I’d also say that like myself, they probably don’t see themselves staying in their positions for much longer than maybe two or three years.

With this in mind, I began to brainstorm a list of a couple of options we could investigate:

1). We could all quit our jobs, sit on our couches, and drink tea. All day, every day.
This may sound appealing, but delinquent student loan payments do not. While bills are a pain in the butt, I feel a colossal sense of accomplishment from being able pay my own rent, cell phone bill, cable bill, etc. Therefore, I’m not certain I’m quite ready to trade my paycheck for tea sipping and knitting.

2). We could marry rich men and THEN quit our jobs, sit on our couches, and drink tea. All day, every day.
Frequently when Carolyn, Rachel, and I get together, we rave about the countless things we love about our boyfriends. Unfortunately, the amount of money they earn is not among the things we rave about. But Kanye West was not rapping about us in his song “Golddigger;” my friends and I are naturally determined and independent. I can only imagine the boredom we would experience having each of our needs met by men.

3). We could find new jobs that don’t make us feel tired and cranky.
Newsflash! Most jobs will eventually make you feel tired and on some days, cranky. This is why it’s important to take full advantage of every moment between Friday afternoon and Sunday evening.

4). We could get the most we can out of our current situations, using them to help us figure the next step we need to take.
After seventeen years of schooling and one year of work experience, I still have no clue what I want to be when I grow up. While this may be shocking to some, I’m not too worried (yet) because I have been able to eliminate many career paths based on this past year alone.

The truth is that I really do enjoy my job. It is giving me great experience and is preparing me for bigger and better things. But it’s because of this job that I’ve realized that I don’t really enjoy sales, that I do enjoy working with youth, and that I’m not the biggest fan of traveling. I’m refining my strengths, such as customer service, and I am developing others such as sales and training. I am the farthest thing from miserable, and for that I count my blessings. So I think that for now, I’ll gladly endure through the tiredness and crankiness if it means I can learn a lot about myself in the meantime.

Besides, if I really, really need tea, my office is within walking distance of four different Starbucks.