The suburban home is the setting of my greatest fear: the supposed
American ideal of the big house at the end of a cul-de-sac, with a dog in the
backyard and two kids playing together on the living room floor. Imagining
myself there in ten years makes me feel trapped and panicky. And then I imagine
commuting to a respectable but monotonous office job, and I cringe even deeper
into my seat.
Is life in
suburbia an idea that one grows into? Is my dread of a 9 to 5 office job
something I need to make myself accept? The more I think about it, the more I
convince myself it’s okay to not be dreaming of getting married and having kids
and commuting to the office from my nice suburban home. I don’t know how
widespread that projected ideal is among my generation, but I know I shouldn’t
feel aberrant for wanting something different. I’m not even sure what I want,
but I know it’s not this traditional American
image of success.
At selective universities like UNC and Duke, it’s easy to
get trapped inside a narrow, imposed definition of success. This definition
varies by subject of study, but largely I’ve found that it pushes for a
high-paying corporate job in a big city. And then, right on top of that,
general American culture promotes that image of the brick family home with the
white fence.
But what if that’s not what I want? Why am I surrounded by
people who seem convinced they know better than me what I need to be
“successful”? Why is it so hard for me to commit to pursuing my own ideas of
success?
I often
struggle with a sense of desperate anxiety over finding the right career path. I
once read a story about a man who,
while working in the office, accidentally spilled coffee on his desk. His
immediate reaction was to automatically hit "control+Z" on his
keyboard (the shortcut for "undo"). In that moment, he suddenly
realized his life had become so artificial that his subconscious wasn't
distinguishing between the real world and the digital world.
That idea terrifies me. The
digital future is a big part of why entering the professional world is scary to
me. We're living more and more in front of lit-up screens. Yet I’m convinced I would wither a little bit every day I spent working
in front of a computer.
I don’t want that. Nor do I want the suburban house that comes
with two kids and a dog. So where does this leave me? Homeless and unemployed? The
career advising I’ve received in college — both from official University
sources as well as from many of my high-achieving peers — has given me the
impression that if I’m not looking for the “right” things, then I’m doomed to
an anonymous life of continuous financial struggle. Which maybe is my fate. But
beyond making enough to pay the bills and eat out once in awhile, I know that
money won’t buy me happiness. I know what makes me happy: things like intellectual
stimulation, creative freedom, spending time outside and forging meaningful
connections with the people around me.
I know it’s not a novel thing to defy a perceived norm, but each
person doing it knows he or she has to do it deliberately and confidently — and
therefore must think it out thoroughly. I also know wanting a corporate job or
suburban home is not necessarily a mainstream thing. I am sure plenty of people
never feel the pressure of that expectation. But I do believe that model is a
pervasive expectation at elite universities like ours, and I don’t think it
should be. But I don’t want to imply it’s a bad thing, either. I just hope I
can maintain the tenacity to hold onto my own definition of success, reminding
myself of the unique combination of factors I need to be happy — and having the
foresight to respect that, independent of everything else.
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