Grass pierces concrete

I don’t feel like I’m contributing to society. Isn’t the point of life to get a job, make money, and become self-sufficient while contributing a practical service to the community?

Part of the problem is that I’m currently working less than 30 hours a week and during that time I am doing things I don’t enjoy and am not good at (making phone calls and using computers) a lot of the time. I think in my next life I want to make handmade decorative soaps and stationary and journals. But a lot of my job is supposedly what I like, or at least what I am here to figure out if I like (working with innercity youth.) But it feels like I sit on the bus all day, walk around they city on self-guided tours and watch homeless people, and then go home and check my e-mail.

Another part of the problem is that when I’m by myself for too long I start to feel like I don’t exist — it’s just me and my thoughts and life starts to feel imaginary. I’m also without all the “resources” I used to have to evaluate me — roommates, grades, IV staff feedback — so I have to learn a new system. The default system of my world, though, happens to use dollars as its currency. And I’m not earning any of those. In fact, lots of nice people gave me some of theirs so I could be here.

So I feel like I might be letting them down. I want so badly to just pull myself up by my bootstraps and put my college degree to good use so I don’t need to rely on people anymore. I’ll do it myself. I can take care of myself. I’m an adult, really.

But that’s also the attitude I’m trying so desperately to fight against! Needing people is so hard! Not having a car, not knowing where anything is or how to use the bus or where I’ll live next or who will want to accompany me during the 138+ hours a week that I am not working is reeeaaallly hard.

God, teach me how to be ok with who I am no matter what I am doing or who I am pleasing or whose life I am “impacting” or not impacting.

But on the other hand, God does give everyone talents to invest — am I sitting on mine? Am I using them without knowing it? Am I rejecting the ones I’ve been given and trying to look like I have different ones? I’m lost. But I think society will be ok until I figure it out ;o)