Confessions of a Former Flaneur

Tales of a wandering soul.

Image from Unsplash.

For the past six or so years, I’ve been all but directionless. Much to the worry of my family, I went through 3.5 years of my undergrad and 2 years getting a Master’s Degree, all without coming any closer to a conclusion about what kind of career path I might want to do. To say I’m a commitment-phobe is a bit of an understatement — I think everyone was beginning to fear that in fact I might be work-phobic (and to some degree, aren’t we all?). The thing is, as mentioned in my previous article, my entire family works in education. And most of them love their jobs. Or at very least, they love the benefits package, the long vacations, and the opportunity to travel during the summer. Trying to get me to consider education was their way of caring. It’s what they know, and it isn’t a terrible job, all things considered. But it just didn’t resonate with me. And I tried. Hard. I worked at after school programs, before school programs, summer camps, as a substitute teacher, a special education teacher, a tutor. For several years, I just thought it was normal to hate your job. That’s not to say there weren’t good moments — there always were. But my overall feeling toward these jobs was sick dread. I never wanted to go to work.

Despite all of this, I applied for a Teaching Assistantship position at the university I got my Master’s…