What do you think and feel?
What really matters to me is achieving and maintaining what I perceive to be balance. As metaphysical as it sounds, for the past year or so, I have become much more aware of the daily balancing act that goes on in my head. I love eating, but I fear mass-produced foods. I want to be involved in my family members’ lives, but I don’t want to make their problems mine anymore. I want professional success but I want to foster my social and personal lives.
Right now, I am engrossed with being a student. To be clear, the actual classes and homework don’t take up very much time but I have always felt that being truly knowledgeable is about how much you are able to teach yourself – and that pursuit is what really takes up time. Graduate school was a last-minute decision for me. Before graduating from my undergrad I thought I had it all planned out but I suppose that goes to show that you never know how things are going to change – even if just in the immediate future. However, so far I am really enjoying graduate school a lot more than my undergrad years. I feel freer to explore my interests and to express my opinions.
Another major preoccupation for me is finally getting to enjoy the social life I have hitherto neglected. When I was younger, there were other things that took priority over socializing but now I feel like I have finally figured out how to balance my responsibilities with my leisure time. In the past semester I have met a lot of interesting people and made some really great friends along the way. No one usually believes me, but I really do enjoy spending time with others and getting to know new people. I put a lot of importance on spending time with the people in my life and sharing their great company.
I’m really excited about finding a job. I think I have been mentally prepared for it since my sophomore year in college; it’s just my experience and credibility that have needed to catch up. I aspire to eventually settle into a job that I really truly enjoy and that makes a tangible difference in people’s lives. I know that sounds a little vague but I don’t want to pigeonhole myself into one specific thing. For a long time, I thought I would work as an account planner at a prestigious advertising agency but now I am looking into international marketing consultancy. There are three big things I want in a job: fulfillment, travel, and money (but more on that later).
Sometimes, I worry I am taking too long to get things started (and then I realize I’m just 23 years old so that’s ok). I worry I don’t do enough for my health. I worry I’ll become a crazed career woman who, as my best friend Celeste put it, “will miss her first child’s birth because she was busy sending a blast e-mail on her corporate Blackberry.” I worry that as an adult I won’t have time for the things I really care about. I worry my cynicism will win out and I’ll stop believing that we can ever really understand each other.
What do you see?
I see people I know getting engaged, married, pregnant, and divorced (not necessarily in that order). I see my own family dispersing and my friends moving away. I see my parents become theirs. I see myself becoming my parents. I see need and excess in the same places. I see us getting fatter and dumber and more entitled. I see that blatant discrimination has become refined into a subtle, deleterious agenda. I see people throwing plastic bottles away when there is a recycling bin right next to the trashcan and then throwing used tissues away in the recycling bin. I see this city and for the first time in 5 years I think I am starting to love it.
I see that my friends are facing a lot of the same uncertainties as I do. I see that they are all intelligent, capable people who lead fascinating normal lives. I see their enthusiasm to make themselves known.
I see the market offers me 27 different flavors of Jell-O. I don’t blame the market for making people materialistic because I see that the market really does try to give people what they want. But people for the most part don’t know what they want. I see that the market is getting better in a lot of ways. I see that the market tries to enact social change. I see that the market is everyone’s favorite scapegoat.
What do you say and do?
I asked people who know me about this one – call it secondary research – and got a mixed bag of answers. What I say and do really depend on the context or the situation. I have always felt that the way I express my personality is fairly mutable. I’ll never hear anyone say, “That is so Natalie!” It also doesn’t help that I like to try on different personalities for my own personal amusement.
In public I am usually reserved and friendly. I am polite but not overly so. I try to make people feel comfortable so I tweak the way I express myself quite a bit. I have problems with eye contact. I cross my arms too much. I love talking, especially with my hands, and am rarely shy. I walk with purpose. I greet salespeople and thank waiters. I treat everyone with respect always. I’m nice to people until they prove to me that they don’t deserve it. I’d rather hear what people have to say than talk about myself. I hold doors open for people. I buy rounds.
I hate feeling dirty or messy. Showers wake me up so until I have had mine I feel like my day has not started. I like being well groomed. I get my nails done. I’m always neatly dressed. I love fashion and shopping for clothes but I don’t read fashion magazines because I believe they serve to bring down your self-esteem by making you want what you can’t have. I have a penchant for solids but I am trying to get more prints in my wardrobe. I’ve been told I dress “French.” I rarely wear heels and I just started wearing make up last year.
I run, swim, do yoga, hike, camp, and play. I go to art museums but always skip the American and Egyptian wings. I observe people; my most recent endeavor is figuring out if and why we think Laundromats are sexy. I sing when I am alone, even if I don’t know the language. I keep a Twitter feed of things people say that I find interesting or just clever. I get out of my comfort zone on a daily basis and will try anything at least once. I sponsor a little girl in the Philippines. I advocate jelly multivitamins. I spend hours at bookstores. I say a lot of half-truths, self-deprecating remarks, and blunt observations. I never say things to purposely hurt others. I make 25 New Year’s resolutions each year and usually keep about ten of them.
What do you hear?
I hear my friends’ worries about the future. I hear their hopes and wishes and I want so badly for them to understand that they are all within their grasp. I hear them reminisce about good times we have had together and plan for more memories. I hear them make references to 90s pop culture that I’ll never quite understand. I hear them talk about this new whatever they bought and how much they love or hate it.
I hear my bosses complain about employees’ lack of good writing skills and motivation. I hear them trying to make sense about how fast things are changing. I hear them negotiate with the client then mute the conference call and let loose a string of expletives. I hear them use a lot of marketing buzzwords like “synergy,” “core competencies,” and “touching base.” I hear them ask me to teach them what I am learning. I hear them say, “We’re sad to see you go; come back after graduation.”
I don’t hear influencers. I am an influencer. I'm constantly buying and trying new products. On any one given shopping trip I buy at least three new items to the market. I'm the type who tells my mom she should buy Eggland's Best eggs because they taste better and she will because she knows I know what I am talking about. I let people know what I think about that new movie or that one book and I tell them if I think they would like it or if they should pass on it. I consider myself pretty good at approximating what people I know will like and what they won't.
What are your pain points?
I don’t have a great many number of fears. I don’t fear making mistakes or even failure. I suppose my greatest fear is finding out that what I have heard all my life – “It’s never too late to change” – is a huge lie. I fear being in a position where I have convinced myself that it is too late to change and that things will remain the same.
My greatest frustration is my lack of passion. I know so many people who are dedicated to one or two things that they are absolutely passionate about. My friend Bryan, for example, is passionate about heavy metal and MMA; these two things fulfill him and take up the inner orbits of his life. I guess I am secretly envious of people like that; they make it look so simple to be utterly consumed by one specific thing, as if it were effortless. And I suppose it should be. I, on the other hand, am interested in so many things but passionate about very few. And those things that I am passionate about I dedicate little time to so then I can only deduce that I am not truly passionate about them.
My biggest obstacle always has been and always will be myself. I often feel that I make life to hard on myself and don’t enjoy it as much as I should. I take myself too seriously and wish that I wouldn’t. I know I’ll regret it later.
What do you hope to gain?
I know perfection doesn’t exist but I have this image in my head of what would make me happiest and I want to get as close to that as I can.
I want to love what I do. I want to always be curious. I want to get better at cooking. I want to be surrounded by the people who care about me. I want a house with a garden. I want to live in another country for a few years. I want to have time to indulge my hobbies and interests. I want to travel more. I want to raise my children with my best friends’ children. I want to one day make my husband deliriously happy. I want to write a book. When I retire I want to own a bakery/flower shop and just spend my day arranging hydrangeas and icing mille feuilles.
I don’t believe people who say money isn’t important. They’re either lying or have always had it. I once had a trust-funder boyfriend whose only wise words were, “Money is a means to an end.” He was so right. I want to be successful in my professional life because I want to live well. I don’t want to worry about how the bills are going to get paid or where the next meal is going to come from. I want to be able to provide my family with all the things they need. I want to be able to support myself in the event of a family disaster.
The simplest measure to my success is happiness. I don’t care if some of these things don’t work out as long as I am happy – and not just the kind of happy where you settle and decide “well, it’s the best I can do” – but real, true happiness. That would be paradise.
My greatest obstacle as I mentioned before is myself. Sometimes I put the things I want on hold so that I can do the things others expect of me. I guess that was fine when I gave in to my parents’ wishes and went to college but I think now is the time to do what I want to do.
