my career

In the great world of personality tests my favorite one ever is the meyers briggs personality test. I took it a long time ago and it breaks you down into a 4 letter label. I am an INFP, this is what it says about INFPs and they're career choices.

"The INFP is a special, sensitive individual who needs a career which is more than a job. The INFP needs to feel that everything they do in their lives is in accordance with their strongly-felt value systems, and is moving them and/or others in a positive, growth-oriented direction. They are driven to do something meaningful and purposeful with their lives. The INFP will be happiest in careers which allow them to live their daily lives in accordance with their values, and which work towards the greater good of humanity."

I just got a job working at fred meyers, and now I can't sleep. I can't help but see very clearly that this job doesn't matter a bit to anyone. I'm not going to quit though, I definitely need this job if I'm ever going to get to do what I really want to do. at this point I'm planning on going back to china again. and I need the money to do that. but for now it really sucks. I feel like I'm gambling with my soul. Every so often they tell me a story about some person who thought they were just gonna work there for a little while then ended up staying for 20 years and became the manager of the whole Oregon division of stores. which scares the crap out of me. Even if I became the fucking CEO, I know I would look at my life as the biggest let down, I would hate my self if I ended up there for that long.

but nothing has really started yet, right now they're just doing training. today i sat in a freezing cold room smaller than my own room in my house, with 6 other people, with fluorescent lights and no windows, for 5 hours. I'll do the same thing on saturday interrupted tomorrow with a practice shift where I'm buddied up with one of the people who works there now. I can feel my insides melting away while I sit in that room. feel the compromise I'm making just by being there. I know it will be better when I'm actually out working instead of just learning the rules of the company. Being told that what you are doing is super important over and over, when you know for sure that it is not, makes you feel really bad, it feels like it's cheapening the word "important" and you realize why people seem so confused when you say you want to do something important in your life. it's so clean, so sanitary, so empty.

when I got home I immediately started cooking dinner for myself, I was desperate to be creative, I needed to make something to clean myself of the conformity I'd been forced to swallow all day. being told "you don't get to have an effect on these people you will be in contact with every day, you are only a good employee if you do exactly what we tell you. just surrender yourself to being our tool" it makes me want to scream.

I can't sleep still now. it's ok if who ever is reading this wants to stop, there's nothing more important for me to say, I just feel like I need to get all this out. I was so disappointed to not get the job at the after school program with campfire. I would have lived and died for that job. that's why I love working at camp, I love making kids better, having them learn from me, and maybe in a little small way becoming better. I can only be happy when I am effecting the world around me. Teaching is one major way to do that.

I just keep feeling like I an continuing to make bad choices, like i can't stop making bad choices and my life is falling apart because of it. It would be easy to say that it all started when my relationship with Rye fell apart. it wasn't just that I loved her, it was that I thought things were figured out. I knew what I was going to do. I was going to marry her, i was going to travel around the world with her forever. I knew that for sure. and I was so happy. I could smile, I could laugh with her. My heart was just so full. But when I felt things slipping away, and I was desperately trying to cling to every thing I'd had. my heart started draining. so it started to feel like a raisin like an old empty bag. covered in stretch marks and aching. and though it has shrunk, close to it's original size now. it still hurts, it's still not as strong. It's wrinkled and used now.

at camp it wasn't as clear. Because I loved my friends, loved my kids, I didn't feel so bad. but now that camp is over and I'm just getting back to normal life where people don't really care about each other, where the most important thing you can do is lift a box in your safety zone. my heart is vacant again, and hurting again. I know my life will never be the same as it was before I met Rye, I'm not the same person anymore, and sometimes I'm really afraid that I won't ever be as happy as I used to be.

I'm headed towards this great unknown now. this massive future full of doubt, full of fear and self loathing. I hate the whining I do, I hate the self pity. I am afraid to just go numb, try and ignore where I'm at, I know people who have done something they hated just for a little while because they had to, and to cope they just went numb, then they didn't really care anymore and they thought it would be easier to just stay where they are. and even if I don't stay there, I'm still afraid of getting to good and numbing my self at all. I wonder if it will just be better for me to stay completely aware of how much it hurts working there every day, so that when i leave I will still have my ability to feel, and see the world around me as great, or awful, depending.