I got fired from my first ever "adult" job in May. And it only took 6 months. I didn't meet the numbers and expectations that were given to me, and my manager at the time was not afraid to remind me of this. He often bragged to us before about previous firings of employees I've never met and said that it was better to let employees sink fast and replace them with someone who can do the job; for both sides' sake.

I graduated with a 3.7 GPA and I held myself to such a high standard. Plus by this point I was 23, jobless, and living with my parents while all my friends are independent and starting their careers. I was so ashamed for not meeting expectations that I couldn't talk to anyone for weeks, and I spent a handful of months not showing my face anywhere online; I just didn't feel like I had anything to be proud of, let alone worthy of talking about. I'm finally feeling up to telling people here though, and I've found a new direction I want to go in since then.

I started teaching yoga at my gym part time immediately after losing my job. We're located right next door to a physical therapy clinic, and one day I walked in to introduce myself and realized this is something I could possibly be good at. My previous job made me realized I hated sitting behind a desk all day, and worse, I hated taking advantage of people in the way being a headhunter required me to; I'd much rather be actually helpful. After learning more about the profession, and doing 30 hours (as of now) of volunteer service at various Physical Therapy clinics, and I've realized that this is something I want to do with my life. Of course, I'll need to go back to school before I practice, and it's a bit of a doozy, considering I have a business degree.

At first I didn't think it was possible to make that big of a change. I felt like I was damned by my choices made in college, choices that I've realized now were influenced by desire to carry on a family legacy of pretty successful businessmen as opposed to a desire to learn something that truly interests me. I spent months wrestling with whether or not it was wise to make the jump to go back to school not only for a second Bachelors degree in the Biological sciences, but to go on and get a Doctorate in Physical Therapy before being allowed to practice. I've been incredibly self conscious about doing this. Partially because I'd be a bit older than my classmates in undergrad, but also because I'd be graduating at age 28 from Grad School; I was worried that would be far too late to finally start my career. Not only that, but I felt that going back to school would be me admitting that I made a mistake that cost me 4 years of my life and my parents a lot of money that they saved so that I wouldn't be in debt after graduating.

I've finally come to grips with all this though. I am not a failure for my previous job, and I am not a failure for realizing that I need to go back to school to follow my real passions. I will be attending NC State University in January for a Bachelors Degree in Human Biology, this time paying with money I've saved from my previous job and several contract positions since then. It will last for a bit, but I will eventually have to take out student loans to do this. It worries me, but I feel that it will be worth it if it means that I am happy with my life.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you all have a great holiday.