Thoughts

Thoughts as of late:

I'm growing up.  For real this time.  When you're a small girl, "growing up" meant that you could change your clothes by yourself and tie your shoes.  When you're a teenager, "growing up" meant that you could go through a hard day and not let it affect the way you treated your little brother.  As you mature into an adult, you learn how to do your own laundry, cook your own food, (hopefully) manage your own budget, and pay for your own bills.  You do your own homework when you're supposed to and you drive yourself places.  (I'm still working on that one.)  You take responsibility for your actions, and you learn how to fix your own problems.

There is a new level of being an adult that I've never really known about.  And I feel like I've had to discover it the hard way, because when other people would try to tell me, I wouldn't believe them.  I thought that they were just being jaded and pessimistic.  I'm not trying to say that life sucks, because it DOESN'T.  But you do need to know a few things to make it through unscarred, or at least with minute scars.  And I don't think that I'm jaded or pessimistic.  Just wiser.

In order to survive in a highly competitive market and not get stomped on, you have to be able to hold your own.  There are some of those (myself included) who hate hurting other people's feelings, even to the point of hurting ourselves so that others won't be inconvenienced.  That's all well and good in some circumstances, but when opportunities for your career are on the line, and there are others being unjust to you, it just won't work to be that way all the time.  It's a really tough lesson to learn, and it's never easy.  Good news is that most of the time, there is a way to keep things professional and civil without getting immature.

I won't go into any specifics.  I'm also very grateful that I'm at an institution like BYU where you don't see too much of that.  Still though, it's good to be prepared if you plan on having a job one day.  If you have a good set up, don't make the mistake of thinking that someone isn't going to want what you have.  Sadly, and unfortunately, it's just the way it is.

On a more hopeful note, may everyone looking for jobs in competitive markets be blessed by the Lord in finding something that they love as well as something that will sustain the needs of their family.  We can't give up!