Problem: I don't know what I should do as a profession. I have some career choices to make now that are bugging the heck out of me. Those nagging fundamental questions: What do I want to be? Where do I want my life to go? I am just so confused. Sometimes I hate my life so much. I want the job description of sitting at home all day reading blogs and watching TV and being pretty much alone. Any jobs like that? Maybe kottke can pull it off, but I can't. It's not that I hate all the stuff I've studied in school. I guess I'm just really burned out at this point. Burned out with computers and programming and software, even before I've had an actual job in that field. And while doing that type of work wouldn't be the worst possible thing in the world, right now I just don't have much enthusiasm for it.

I've been trudging through college and grad school for five long years. I feel like I've been living this lie for so long that it's hard for me to really know what I want to be doing. The biggest problem is that even after so many years of study I just can't see myself being truly successful at technology. I could achieve some sort of mediocrity, maybe in jobs like setting up databases or doing basic programming, but I've never been the kind of person who cares much about technology. I've never really had fun with it. Never been into web design or trying to make cool new programs. Never really cared about video games or high-powered computers. If you need evidence of that, just look at my blog. I'm the kind of person who always did the minimum on programming projects. And, truth be told, I'm not really good at math. I'm OK at it, good enough at it to get passing grades in calculus and discrete math, but I'm really kind of ditsy when it comes to mathematical concepts. I learn math in almost the same way I learn history, mostly by memorization. It doesn't come easily to me, and I end up missing obvious relationships. And that's not a great trait in someone who really wants to make a difference in the technology field.

When I was a kid I used to think that I could be a journalist. I liked writing a lot, but I had a hard time asking people for interviews. I would put off calling people until the last minute, afraid they would refuse to be interviewed and/or tell me something horrible like "Quit being such a pest". That was always the problem, every single time I tried my hand at journalism. I used to think I could overcome that unease with practice, but how could I force myself to do something that made me so uncomfortable every single day as a job? A job as a reporter is definitely not for me. I still think I could write someday, but maybe in a different capacity, like writing books or long magazine features that wouldn't require me to be really aggressive about interviews.

Besides writing, I also kind of like the idea of doing some sort of research. Getting a Ph.D. in something, and being paid to do research and experiments. But I don't even know what field I would be interested in. At least now I know for sure that that field is NOT computer science :->. Psychology, maybe? Or biology? Archaeology? Those types of things interest me and seem like a better fit than computer science for a person like me (read: not so mathematical). However, I am not enthused about the idea of even more school. I would practically have to start over in college from the beginning. That makes me shudder. So much work. More money, more years of my life. For now, that idea is a no.

So I suppose I can't say that I'm totally clueless about where my interests lie. And that I just have to accept those things about myself that I often wish weren't true, that I'm a shy introvert and that I'm not good at math. I'm the kind of person who is interested in everything, to an extent. I can find something interesting in just about any class, any job, and any situation, which has actually worked against me because I won't admit to myself when I find something boring (i.e. five years of computer science classes). It's hard for me to narrow it down to just one thing that I'm interested in that I want to do for the rest of my life.

And it's also hard to translate those interests into an actual career. I guess the idea is to have a goal that you will get to eventually rather than expect someone to hand you your dream job right out of college. Even if I finally decide one day what I want to do, who knows if I will actually end up doing that. Sometimes survival has to take precedence.

Oh well, so those are my career musings for now. Everyone goes through this stuff eventually. I wish I had gone through this years ago, however, instead of now when I should be starting my career. I've been putting the cart before the horse, I know. Thanks for listening, Internet.