By: Casey harding-brown

You did it! You graduated from college (or high school)! Now what?

If you’re like me, most of your life was guided by your parents, guardians, or school staff. You were told when/what to eat, where you could and could not go, when you were supposed to be in class and what you were expected to do, what sports to play, what summer job to take etc. Then you get to college and HELLOOOOO freedom! At that point in your life, your biggest job is to pass your classes (“C’s get degrees!” As my not so traditional father would say), stay out of jail, and not die from alcohol poisoning.

When you get into the “real world”, the freedom you had been so excited to receive only a few years prior, can now seem daunting and somewhat suffocating. What am I supposed to do with my life? Why isn’t anyone coming up to me and saying “Here’s what you’re meant to do, you’re the perfect fit, please show up here at this time and we will figure this thing called life out for you”?

If you’re like me, and not one of those people who decided they wanted to be a doctor/lawyer/police officer/engineer at a young age and actually stuck with it (by the way, what is up with those people?! I’m torn between envy and thinking of them as static freaks of nature) you soon found out that your degree was less about what you learned and more about the fact that you learned how to navigate responsibility and increased workloads without someone standing over your shoulder telling you what to do. 

You and all your friends are at the bottom of the totem pole taking random sales/marketing/office manager jobs you would have never dreamed of.

And not in the way of “wow this is beyond my wildest dreams! This is amazing!” More in the way of “Wow, this is really not how I dreamed it would be.” First and foremost, this is NORMAL and it’s okay to feel all the feels. But once you’re done with the pity party, I’d love to give you the advice I gave my childhood best friend before she quit the job she was miserable at for almost two years after college. This is YOUR life and no one else is going to live it for you. Do not make the mistake of thinking they will because you will self sabotage your own happiness.

Before going into the story of my best friend quitting her job let me preface this by saying-This is not an article encouraging you to quit your first job just because it’s not your dream job or because you think you deserve to be CEO of the company with 6 months of work experience (unless you go the entrepreneur route, then more power to ya!). This is an article to wake you up to the fact that your happiness lies in your own hands and it is now, among a lot of other new things, your responsibility. To discourage (or perhaps encourage) those who are still thinking, “This article is definitely telling me to quit my job because it’s not exactly what I want” here is a funny and inspirational success story.

One of my best friends wanted a career in public health. After landing a job with the CDC he was stoked! Only to find out his first assignment was a breastfeeding awareness campaign. I think I laughed for about five minutes when he sheepishly shared that with me over the phone. Not because I thought it was an embarrassing or non-important topic. I just knew it was a subject he (a 22-year-old male with no children or young siblings) not only knew nothing about and had little interest in, but that it was also a very female-dominated field.

It was awkward and strange at times but he learned a lot along the way and a few years later he translated this experience to a graduate school application and landed himself a spot at Johns Hopkins and later scored a job at the corporate offices for CVC Pharmacy.  He went from living with 3 roommates in a room equivalent to Harry Potter’s cupboard under the staircase in the Lower East Side (a story all too familiar to anyone who’s lived in New York in their 20’s) to his own one-bedroom apt in Brooklyn.

This was all due to his perseverance and hard work. He knew if he wanted to get his dream job he would need to do x,y,z and he executed it. Some of us on the other hand, are not so lucky. Let’s circle back to my best friend.

My best friend graduated from UCSB with an English literature degree. She absolutely loved history, reading, and writing but she soon found that the job selection for those topics without experience or a graduate degree was pretty slim. Her dad is a financial advisor and had always held onto hope that she would take over his book of clients. She was the last hope since her older brothers pursued careers in acting and chemistry so the pressure was on. She knew landing the job would be a shoo-in and she also knew she needed money. So she did what most people would do; she took the job. The first year went by and she was miserable. I’m talking “I wish I would fall down the stairs on the way to work and break a bone so I didn’t need to go in” type miserable. Numbers were never her forte and the mounding stress of working while trying to pass the Series 7 tests were taking a serious mental toll on her. It just wasn’t for her.

She didn’t write anymore because she was so exhausted and depressed from work. She was literally losing part of herself. But she didn’t want to disappoint herself or her dad so she stuck it out for another year. By the end of year two, things were worse than year one if that was even imaginable. One day we were chatting on the phone and she was venting and

I said “Listen. If you want to quit, YOU need to quit. No one in your office is going to make you quit. Your dad sure is hell isn’t and even if he is upset at first that you’re not taking over his books, don’t you think he’d prefer for you to be happy? Wouldn’t YOU prefer to be happy?”

A couple days later she told me she thought about my advice and she had put in her two weeks. Now, let me say that I also do not advise people to just quit their jobs willy nilly without having something else lined up, that’s how you end up unemployed for a year living in your parent’s basement. But I do advise people to take accountability for their own life and happiness. She now has a new job that isn’t her dream job, but she loves her co-workers, doesn’t dream of breaking bones on the way to work and is attending grad school in the fall for literature. When she realized no one would make the hard decisions for her anymore, she gained that missing part of herself back. 

A personal example of this for me is music. I have dreamed of being a singer for a long time. I had this vision that someone would somehow know that I sang (even though I had not released any music or made any social pages for my music) and would walk up to me and say “You’re the star we’ve been looking for! Follow me kid, we’ll make your dreams come true!” It didn’t take long for me to realize this was a ridiculous fantasy. But it did take me awhile to connect the dots that if no one was going to do it for me, I had to do it myself. I had every excuse in the world: I’m not talented enough, I haven’t found a studio in the new city I’m living in, I haven’t figured out my sound, it’s still a work in progress etc. It wasn’t until I woke up one day and realized my whole life would always be a work in progress. That isn’t an excuse to not do the things you want to do. If you wait for the “right time” you will wait forever. I took accountability for my music.

I set goals, I released music, I made an Instagram page for my art where I was vulnerable and exposed everything I had been holding back. And you know what? I have received nothing but support and opportunities through it. I was asked to play for a mini-festival in Denver and ended up landing a job with the company, which allowed me to learn the ropes of music event production, artist booking, and I connected with so many artists.

I now have collaborations out or in progress from people who found me on Instagram and decided they liked me enough to put me on their song. When I look back at my doubtful self a few years ago, I want to slap myself!

When you realize no one will do it for you and you take accountability for your life and happiness, people recognize that and respect it. You will feel empowered and in turn, good things will come your way and everything will fall into place.

Outside of music, I am a self-described “go-getter” (life hack: employers LOVE that answer in interviews questions) and many people have acted baffled with the opportunities that seemed to magically land in my lap.

Whether it was my post-college internship in Barcelona or my remote sales job that allowed me to work from home or anywhere in the world, people were always saying “You’re so lucky! I wish I could do that” Um, well you CAN do it and it didn’t just happen out of “luck”. 

After college, I knew I wanted work experience and also to live in another country so I decided to combine the two and found an internship program in Barcelona, applied, and got in. I got a remote job because I realized very quickly I was not a 9-5 office girl and although I did not mind having a corporate job, I did not want a corporate lifestyle.

I valued a flexible schedule and being able to work from wherever so I focused my job search on remote work and only interviewed at companies that offered it until I landed one.

I realized if I wanted something done, I had to do it. No one would do it for me.

It’s scary but freeing at the same time. How amazing is it that every morning you get to wake up and decide to lead the life you want?! Don’t play yourself.