Alex Shippee

The last few things I’ve written about were the best ways to avoid answering important, nagging questions. As always happens, somebody more experienced than me said it better. It helped me solidify what I was thinking: any form of escapism – including aimless travel, being overly critical, and everything in between - is easier than making hard choices in the present. This is why the damned in Dante’s “Inferno” can only see the future and have to ask the living for news: in life, they lived corruptly to escape the present moment, and so that is the law their spirits conformed to. After all, if you’re lying when you say you want to improve your life, it can always wait until tomorrow.

I don’t know that it applies to everyone, but I know that it’s important for me to figure out. Because it’s with me when I go into New York City for work each day and it’s with me when I go home to CT each night.

I don’t know how it works at other schools, but Marist College has a week between the end of finals and graduation called ‘Senior Week.’ I woke up that first Saturday – my last final behind me by only 17 hours – and felt an uplifting sense of freedom. I went for a run across the Mid-Hudson Bridge; I traveled near Vassar to eat dumplings and drink bubble tea at an Asian/Argentinean restaurant; I cracked open a book I didn’t have time to read before; and I spent time with my friends playing kickball. It was fantastic.

Graduation has come and gone and, with it, so has that uplifting feeling of Senior Week. Now, I feel a sort of stress and tension. I’m in a state of transition for the first time where I don’t know the outcome. I might fail, I might succeed, or I might stagnate. But I don’t think it’s something I need to be truly afraid of. Robert Greene says, “You have nothing to fear from moments of transition. You welcome, even create them. Whenever you feel rooted and established in place, that is when you should be truly afraid.”

So I think this tension is a good thing. It will help push me in the right direction and keep me focused. In the end, I’ll only be in someplace new, not in some place worse.

This past week, I went on my first interview that wasn't at either a restaurant or a farm. And it was stressful. I brought several copies of my resume and a portfolio of my recent work and hoped for the best. I was expecting to be dragged through a fire.

The man who interviewed me, though, was extremely friendly. This put me at ease and my nerves started to settle. I listened comfortably as he talked and I began to wonder when I'd be asked one of those stock interview questions everybody dreads: "What would you say is your biggest weakness?", "Where do you see yourself in five years?", or, my favorite, "Tell me a little bit about yourself." They're questions that seem honest enough, but are asking you how good you are at selling yourself.

As I reflect a little more on my first interview, I think it might be silly to resent or dread these questions. Preparation is a very important part of job interviews, but it starts sooner than we usually think. If you're applying to the right company, agency, firm, etc. than you've found, hopefully, some place you really want to work at. When they ask you "What is your biggest weakness?" you know they're really asking "How could your deficiencies keep you from succeeding if you get this job?" And you should know that.

I want to work in Public Relations because I love stories. I love to read them, I love to write them, but more than anything, I love to be a part of them. I live for that moment when I can accomplish something extraordinary enough to be worth talking about. I can be impatient though. I want to do something and hear that applause as soon as possible. That reliance on instant gratification is extremely limiting because all the greatest things take time.

That saying, "Rome wasn't built in a day,"is unavoidable. And everything, from building an Empire to finding the right job, takes a corresponding amount of work according to its value. It's hard to remember that when you're struggling through the trenches but, one day, it'll all be worth it.