April Fools

This is not what you think. Do not read this.

The upcoming month has the potential to be very special. I guess every month has this, but this month I have the potential to make it special.

I’m taking a break from work. Which as a college graduate, is worth mentioning. In May, I’m moving to Nashville so this 30-day break gives me a moment to prepare, relax, and transition.

I think about this time last year. How bizarre, beaten, and fragmented the world felt. 2020 was nuts. I remember being sent home to do my corporate job remotely — at my house. Which was a blessing in disguise, in more ways than one. It was necessary. The “global pandemic” called for it. But personally, I appreciated the change in velocity of the 8-to-5 office thing.

Spring

I’ve deeply enjoyed spring the last several years. A few years ago, in 2018, I was at home in my parents house. I remember how distinctly free I felt there. The mornings were open. I was able to focus on exercise and writing and only had to do a couple online classes — I was just starting to get into music, too. I think I recognize and understand how crucial breaks are. Maybe now more than ever. This time during Covid last year reminded me if the peace that breaks bring. When you’re an adult, you aren’t entitled to breaks. I realized quarantine was a subtle time, to me a blessing, thanks to God, a force outside of me. I felt grateful. There’s an overwhelming beauty in lack of worry.

The Real World

What’s it like in the real world?

I’ll tell you.

It’s a stark contrast from the nature of “the working world.”

You remember growing up thinking graduation meant being on top? Ha. When you graduate, you’re actually at the bottom, not the top. You simply enter a new hierarchy and take lowest rung on the ladder, preferably within a group or organization you decide. A degree can lead you to the door, or nudge you in the right direction, but it cannot earn you anything really. Not in the real world at least.

I earned my bachelors degree in Accounting in college. My first job outside of college was picture perfect in terms of accounting. It fit all the criteria. It was completely relevant to the framed piece of paper I paid thousands of dollars to receive. But the nature of the actual work is the nature of the actual work.

I thought it was the end.

Then I realized it’s the start of the 2nd quarter.

The 2nd quarter of life. 25. In sports, you’d consider that the start of the game — you’d realize how much game is left to play. Most of the important plays have yet to come, the outcome is unknown, the ending is exciting! So you’re hopeful and motivated and alert. Of course, in some games, you crash and burn immediately. People can get severely pummeled so early on they forget there’s three quarters left. The beginning can feel like the end SO much so that the rest of the game is a desperate attempt to not get humiliated. Which is humiliating. So there’s potential for career ending injury at any moment — people die all the time. This is a fact I am stating.

What do I want to accomplish and acheive in April 2021?

Dang, why is this time special, why does it matter, why do I value it?

Performing a job you do not love is horrible. There’s no creative improvement or desire to progress. It’s too technically complex or perhaps too dull or motionless. It’s very challenging to view the material world as something you can improve upon. Doing so creates more work and more stress. Doing the bare minimum to get by is foolish. Memorizing tasks and repeating them month to month is not it. There is no growth there, only a minimization of exerted effort or responsibility on a cycilical basis. As an accountant, your job is all about getting large quantities of granular information to make sense and agree with other large banks of granular information. It’s mentally taxing and takes real mental fortification to do right. If something goes wrong, it’s a needle in a haystack conundrum. Or an extraordinarily small hiccup that must be resolved. It’s exceptionally tedious, somewhat annoying, and not entirely inspiring to a guy like me. Any job, without the proper orientation, is impossible.

Anyway.

April is an opportunity to focus on the things I love that make me who I am.