"funemployment"

My friend used this term while jokingly envying my current, self-inflicted job status. I'm on "funemployment".

The truth is that many ppl I know at my age are going through the same career-questioning phase that I'm going through. We all went to great schools, studied hard, got great degrees, found great, resume-building jobs, and now nearly 8-10 years later are tapping our fingers on our desks wondering, ok now what? What do we do now?

See, I personally think it is an outright tragedy that at the age of 16, students have to make one of the most important decisions of their lives without even having experienced real life at all. In our junior and senior years of high school, we have to choose our colleges and choose our majors. How exactly do we make the right decision for ourselves at that age?? I don't believe that we do. We choose based on our best subjects, or based on what's good on paper to get a job after graduation, or what may impress people. I still know that I made the wrong decision in choosing my major. Engineering highlighted all of my weaknesses and never allowed me to enjoy any of my strengths, skills, or hobbies. All 4 years of undergrad were torture for me. Had I gone to a bigger school with actual options for majors, I would have switched out. But I had a full scholarship to a very prestigious school, so I was trapped, I had to endure. And that's why, as much as I dislike engineering and although I know there are better fits out there for me, I've stuck with it for so long because of how hard I had to work to get through it. I put in so much effort, how could I give that all up? I had to endure. So I worked in construction, a little less dry than Engineering.

I never felt like I fit into that world. I was always perceived as the wild liberal with too much interest in the rest of the world, which really didn't matter to my coworkers. I was really good at what I did, and very hard working, but I struggled so much to fit in. I was in a conservative (white) man's world, and between being an arab/muslim and a female, i just felt so different all the time. They love baseball and beer, and golf, and they criticize Obama, the French, the Arabs, have no idea what's happening in Syria, or Egypt, or Greece, or Asia, or Africa, and want to spend their ideal vacation on a beach in Mexico. I've been asked if I have to wear a burqa when I visit Egypt, or if the Christians in Egypt are allowed to speak Arabic. And no, we don't ride camels to school either. I was asked what continent Morocco was on, and if it was right next to Egypt. ...And these are educated people! Sometimes I felt like I was living on the Fox 5 news set. I couldn't believe the things that I would hear and I'd always wonder what the hell I was doing there. I wanted to talk about cultures, documentaries, languages, my next destination... and I would get blank stares, or, coffee break's over. I had to just stop talking so as not to ostracize myself from the group. They less they knew, the better.

So after many years of trying, I finally admitted to myself that while what I've done is admirable, it's just not for me. It doesn't bring out the best in me. I'm not giving it all up, I'm not throwing it all away, but I'm trying to see what, if, there is something better out there for me.

And I'm pretty confident I will find something.