Waking Up From Complacency

The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open. – Chuck Palahniuk

 I have officially been done with college for two weeks and have fallen into a place of complacency, which is utterly terrible. Now you are probably thinking this can be a good thing for the fact that I have been so stressed during the school year and that it is good for me to be able to relax and be in a point where nothing is changing so much. There is an area of truth in this, but at the same time it is awful.

I discovered my complacency with life during the last couple days at work. I work in a retail store and it is so easy to just fall into the motions of life in this type of job. You do the same actions each and every day. For example: I walk into work, clock in and check the fitting rooms and grab between 15 to 30 pieces of clothing from the rack and put it back. That pretty much sums up my days, except for the fact that I may have a project that I have to complete, but putting clothes back in their place is always a part of my day. It just seems so second nature to me now that it doesn’t faze me. I could most likely put these clothes away blind-folded because you just gain a memory where you remember where everything goes. Realizing that this doesn’t sound too bad (let’s be realistic, this is equivalent to any other menial job out there), but the part that kills me is when the fitting rooms are a mess.

Let me give a warning here: I have many horror stories about what I have faced in the fitting rooms and being completely honest, some of them can be hysterical because one cannot believe people are just that disgusting, but I will not be going into any of this detail, because I prefer to tell these stories in person and I just can’t write them in a funny way (being completely honest).

Any way, going back onto the topic of complacency, I was sitting on the fitting room floor folding a bunch of clothes and almost finishing my pile. I was so happy that I was almost finished and could potentially start a project, but then my nightmare happened. A customer dumped a bunch of clothes on top of my perfectly sorted pile, made some sort of comment on how horrible my job must be, smiled and then said “sorry.”

This is a regular occurrence in my life. It happens at least 3 times during a shift no matter how long my shift is. Sad, but true.

During this encounter was different; this encounter set a spark off in my brain; this encounter woke something up deep inside me; this encounter made me realize that this cannot be my life and I needed to do something fast to fix it.

The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open. – Chuck Palahniuk

The encounter woke up a part in me that found my motivation in life to search for something more and a purpose; the encounter cut a part of me open and exposing me to a spark of truth. What is this truth you might ask? It is simple actually: you are more than this.

I have so many ideas, dreams and aspirations that my skills are being wasted in this menial job. This does not mean that I am not thankful for this job, because I am. It would be stupid and foolish not to be thankful for this job since so many people are having a difficult time finding employment, but this does not mean that I don’t want something more. I am young and desire to do something more than to clean up after people in a fitting room.

I feel like so many people fall into this state of complacency and find ways to justify it. This was so apparent when I was helping at youth group on Wednesday when the majority of the kids raised their hands when asked the question of “how many of your parents are not happy with their jobs?” This is such an appalling fact for me to see and then having those kids not being able to answer whether they have an idea of what they wanted to be when they went to college. I remember when I was in second grade I wanted to be a chemist, then in 4th-7th grade I wanted to be an archeologist, then from 8th to my senior year of high school I wanted to be something involving English or theatre (yes, I realize I graduated with two degrees in Marketing, but I am finding that English and theatre have a lot to do with this field if you really think about it). I always had a vision with what I wanted to do with my life and yes, I would fall into points where I fell into complacency, but would wake up. I felt like I was relating too much to these kids who did not know what they wanted to do with their life, because I know exactly what I want to do with my life.

I am so tired of being in this state of this complacency that I am ready to wake up and be cut completely open to find the happiness that I want. I am so determined now to find that career that I want to pursue that I am willing to step out on faith and just go for it. Really, what is it going to hurt? I might get turned down, but who cares. The thing that would be worst is not applying at all. That’s the true state of complacency of finding every excuse not to step out and be cut open to find that happiness.