Oh no, I feel a quarter-life crisis coming on. Crap!

Despite appearing to be really good at patting myself on the back for a job well done, I seem to be going through one of those pesky quarter-life crises.

I assumed I would avoid it altogether because I nabbed an awesome job straight out of school, but the truth is now that I’m all settled in I’m starting to think, “Now what?”

Not so much in terms of my job – I have more than enough to do and the company has a The Sky’s the Limit mentality – but in terms of my life. Until about three months ago, I was working toward some very important milestones in my life. I had full control. I knew if I did A and B I would eventually get to C.

OK. So I got to C. But now I’m panicking a little bit because there are no prescribed steps to take to get to another place in life. I could potentially do anything, so I’m left feeling a bit paralyzed and I do nothing instead.

Except when I’ve had a few drinks and the paralysis melts away and I feel like I can actually do anything, so I do, but I don’t think about the consequences first. And when that feeling finally returns I find myself even more “stuck” because I’m embarassed for losing control, for being irresponsible, for appearing unprofessional. Sometimes I don’t even need a few drinks; I just feel a bit sassy and try to get away with things I never even would have thought about doing, say, a year ago.

Where there used to be clear paths to follow and distinct lines drawn in the sand never to cross, there seems to now be only greyness and uncertainty. Not to be over-dramatic, but in certain situations I find myself having a hard time telling the difference between right and wrong. I often ask friends and family for advice, but none of them seem to know the answers either.

So, here I am, a little confused, mucking things up … putting some things away which have been bothering me for a while and digging up new ones.

I known I need to set goals for myself and work toward them, but I have no idea what those goals should be. I know I want to move back to Toronto, but I have no idea when the right time should be or how much of my debt I should pay off before devoting nearly half of my income to rent. I know I want to meet new people and maybe even date some of them casually, but I have no idea where these people are or how to meet them.

This all sounds very vague, I know. But it’s kind of how I feel right now. Vague. Bleh.

Mission accomplished

I promised myself I would blog more often once I finished school because I wouldn’t be working the equivalent of two full-time jobs (just one), but I’ve still managed to keep myself surprisingly busy.

The only huge news I have is that my face was on the “front page” of GlobeandMail.com on Friday! And not for some random reason, but because I wrote something that The Globe and Mail published on their GlobeCampus site. That’s huge, right?

TalentEgg recently partnered with GlobeCampus for a blog/column called From Class to Career. Lauren’s article went up early last week and mine, “It’s been two months since graduating … now what?”

Needless to say, it’s a very exciting (or eggciting as Lauren would say) time for TalentEgg and for me personally/professionally. Already this year I’ve been published in the National Post multiple times and now something I wrote was featured on the Globe and Mail’s homepage. Two national newspapers in the span of a few months. Not bad!

You don’t have to be hired by a media giant to be published by one!

Why I’m not an entrepreneur, but I love working for one

I am not an innovative mind. During university, I excelled at producing pieces of journalism but was mediocre, at best, at thinking up story ideas. And I’ve never really had an idea for a business. Ever.

If someone points me in a direction, I will go at it full throttle without much assistance. What I’ve accomplished happened mostly by me seizing chances and opportunities. The truth is, I probably could have ended up in any number of fields and done fairly well at each of them. Journalism was just one of many possibilities for me, including psychology, graphic design, advertising, web development, photography and more. I considered all those options before I took a leap of faith into journalism.

I don’t believe any of this makes me dumb, unambitious or unsuccessful. I think it just means there are different types of brains which face the world in different ways.

Today, I’m employed by an entrepreneur.

She’s young (but still older than me), she’s smart and she has about a million ideas each day. Since she runs a small business, she wears a lot of hats. She’s not just the president, she’s also the accountant, the public relations rep, the company spokesperson, the manager and a hundred other things. She’s being pulled in every direction at once and, especially as the company grows, has very little time to sit down and perform every small task which allows the business to run from day to day.

And that’s where I come in because I’m more of a do-er and a problem solver. Although by nature Gen Yers like me are multi-taskers and procrastinators, I typically attack tasks in a certain order without really planning to do so and then “wing it” if/when it comes down to crunch time. Everything I do happens in a sort of organized chaotic way that probably only makes sense to me.

I’m also not a Yes (wo)man. I’m not afraid to tell my boss I don’t like one of her ideas, or that I think it needs to be tweaked, or that it doesn’t mesh with our brand, or that it will take way more work than she thinks it will, or whatever. We have a good rapport so I can voice my opinions (respectfully) without fear of retribution.

If or when I ever do stop working for TalentEgg, and if I have to get a job at a big corporation … I think it’s going to be a very hard adjustment. Instead of saying, “Yes, good idea, I didn’t think of that,” my manager would probably say, “Who do you think you are?”

Or, hopefully the TalentEgg Way will be widespread by then and collaborative, laterally structured, Gen Y-friendly workplaces will be more common. A girl can dream.

This is your life, this is your digital life

When I was a teenager, I spent a lot of time on the computer. I developed web pages, wrote stories and poetry, and designed graphics. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for me to spend all night on the computer (and this was before Facebook and Twitter). Sure, I had friends and family and extra-cirricular activities, but I loved doing this kind of stuff.

Well, my wish came true because now I spend every waking moment on a computer working for TalentEgg, updating my blog and, now, designing websites for other people.

My friend Mandy recently registered her fashion design business and had trouble creating a WordPress-powered site which was true to her brand. She was awesome with HTML, say, five to ten years ago, but things have changed a lot since then. I didn’t want her to have a website from 1999 for her business, so I offered to help. Partly because I really do want to help her, but also because the only way to become more familiar with CSS and PHP is to actually trudge through the code myself.

It’s coming along slowly, but I had to re-code the theme I chose because it didn’t work the way I wanted it to and the code wasn’t organized in a way my brain could process. It should launch within the next few weeks if all goes well.

Lucky for me, there is an endless number of tutorials written by experts and people who have gone through the same issues. It’s not rocket science or brain surgery, it just takes a little research and a lot of patience.

Thank goodness I don’t have a real life right now because it would definitely get in the way of my digital life!

Realities collide

Before we started our internships, we were given an overview of what to expect. Number one on the list of Top 5 Things to Know Before You Start Your Internship is

You will cry on at least one occasion.

I haven’t cried in the newsroom yet, but I had tears in my eyes in the cab on the way back to from covering this story.

I’ve always known I’m not cut out for that type of reporting, but a number of people treated me like I was a monster today for trying to find out what happened. I get it. Reporters are intrusive, but it’s our job. We can’t just not do it.

I called the soon-to-be ex-boyfriend a few times to vent in my downtime and inadvertently made myself even more upset by thinking about relationship things at the same time.

When I got back to the newsroom, there was a message waiting from the financial consultant who worked with my mom before she died. He said her remembered her well and I could hear something in his voice, maybe caution or sympathy, I’m not sure. But I heard it.

To get my mind off all of these things so I could calm down a little, I logged into my TalentEgg email and started answering emails.

For some reason, my responsibilities at TalentEgg had the power to take me away from that painful moment where everything that hurts my heart and mind — work, love, life — had intersected at once. I knew I made the right choice.

I just hope it wasn’t the Tylenol I washed down with a bottle of Pepsi talking.