My Epic (Unsuccessful! Discontent!) Adventure

Yesterday, I began “The Great Job Search.” In your mind, I hope this has an epic level that parallels some adventure on the Oregon Trail. I also hope that this particular adventure is not like the Donner Party’s. My goals are to (metaphorically) not get trapped in snowy impassible mountains, run out of supplies, or resort to eating questionably deceased relatives (to be fair, at least some of the Donner party died of natural causes like starvation and sickness). But enough of this morbid talk, on to something uplifting like… oh wait, job searching. 

To be fair, I didn’t actually start job searching yesterday. I had been working on things on and off during the semester until around April, when I decided that I really needed to focus on the research that I was doing and get the work done before I graduated. So I put the job search on hold until three days after graduation. Honestly, this wasn’t too difficult because (1) my research was way more fun and (2) as much fun as research is, I don’t actually want a research job right now. I love research and totally want to be doing it, but my real desire was to go to grad school and do research there. There are advantages and disadvantages to going straight from undergrad to grad school, which I will not list here for the sake of brevity. Regardless, the truth is that I want to be in grad school now, not here at all.

Oh, that feels like some forbidden secret, just out there on the page for all to see. Attention! Christiana does not have her stuff together, and she has not succeeded in all of her endeavors! Yes, that is real life. There are two things that you and I may or may not choose to learn from this:

1: Success. I tend to functionally operate as if success works the same way that sinlessness or a good reputation does. One strike and you are out. In my head, I know that success does not work this way, and that you have to fail many times before to you do something great. However, I often live as if one failure will reveal to the world that I am actually a failure. Not only is this not true from a worldly perspective^{geek footnote 1}but it also assumes a second lie that my worth is determined by what I do and not who I am^{geek footnote 2}. Basically, this mindset is wrong and generally unhelpful no matter what perspective you choose. So, this job search is an (uninvited) opportunity for me to work on functionally acting as if I believe what I know is true: I already have worth, and I am going to grow as I experience challenges and rejection.

Unlike me, my old kitten Magnolia (we called her Maggie) had
obviously learned contentment at an early stage of life.

2: Contentment. I am not exactly sure why God has me at this stage of life. But I have been seeing more and more that it is at least partially to teach me about contentment. If you had asked me right around the time last semester when I was getting rejections from the grad schools I had applied to, I would have told you that I was honestly excited about learning contentment. That was because I was silly and forgot that learning contentment is about as much fun as learning patience. When you ask to learn patience you suddenly find yourself in a million and one situations that naturally make you impatient until you learn how to find patience independently of your situation. Similarly, it’s not that I have suddenly become content (“Oh, look at that girl, life circumstances should have gotten her down but she is just so content!”) but instead find that all of the circumstances that should make me discontent DO make me discontent. Great. So I would now describe myself as not exactly excited but still looking forward to learning this thing that I obviously have not learned yet: contentment.

And with that thought, I am back to the job search.

*Geek Footnote 1. Carol Dweck is a psychologist who has done research in a variety of settings exploring what she has defined "fixed mindset" versus "growth mindset." Essentially, the difference between the two is whether people view personality/core qualities as 'fixed' by nature, or changeable over time. Not only has Dweck demonstrated that learning can change characteristics we would consider to be 'core', but she has demonstrated over and over the benefits of having a growth mindset over a fixed mindset. Her research has tested these ideas in varied environments including the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, aggression in both bullies and victims, prejudice and cross-race relations, and more. For an awesome review, I would suggest her 2012 article "Mindsets and Human Nature: Promoting Change in the Middle East, the Schoolyard, the Racial Divide, and Willpower." (Unfortunately, I can't link you to the full article here... I will have to learn what non-institutionally affiliated people do to access full text articles because this scientist has been incredibly privileged and sheltered for the past 4 years.) 

*Geek Footnote 2. 

“…yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” (Galatians 2:16) 

 “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God," (John 1:12)

We are not defined by what we do. In fact, we are not defined by ourselves, but by Christ. Our worth in him makes any worth we could dredge up for ourselves pale in comparison.