Now what?

I don't know what it means to be at the end of my rope.

Really, I don't know what it means to be at the end of anything.

Even though phases of my life have come and gone, changes have transpired, I've let some things go, I've said goodbye to more people than I have kept, even though moments have felt over and done with and I've grown up a little bit here and there, nothing really ever fully comes to close, a complete and utter stop, a door without a key. Our lives are continuous in that sense, whether we like it or not.

I'm never fully out of ideas or new adventures or words to say. I might feel a little blanked out or befuddled these days, but there is no such thing as a ceasing of creativity. It might take new avenues to discover it, or a new stretch of faith we also feel short of, but there is never a bottom line in what we are able to accomplish.

So what happens when you feel like you've exhausted all your options? You've applied at a million places, all of which are either unappealing or unattainable (so you imagine), you have yet to hear back from a single one, you are scraping at what is left of your dollars and cents, you can't imagine taking one more latte order, a friend of yours was recently hired or promoted, you hear more frustrating news about the ever-dipping economy, someone discourages your interest, and so on and so forth. Sounds familiar?

I suppose that's where the end-of-rope feeling begins to feel personally applicable. I suggest, instead, that we forge a new course. What haven't you tried yet? And I know the immediate answer to that feels like,

"NOTHING. I HAVE LITERALLY TRIED IT ALL."

That's because braving new options is tough. It doesn't really feel all that exhilarating to confess what you're really going through. It's embarrassing, usually. It's like dreaming about being naked in high school. Running for cover is really the only solution we can bear in mind.

I have a couple of suggestions that I myself have been attempting to incorporate into my ongoing search. Perhaps these are ones you have already thought of or tried.

1. Ask for advice. I know it seems like the last thing you want to hear is a long to-do list from some stuffy suit in a superior position. So ask someone you respect, someone whose choices you admire and can optimally learn from. Maybe this is someone you currently work with, someone you know, a family member. Who in your life can guide you in the right direction? If nothing else, a simple sense of encouragement is something we all could use a little more often.

2. Speak up. Talk about what you want! It's not boring or ordinary or hopeless. Be proud of what excites you. Be active and use your voice. You never know who you might discover on the listening end. It could be someone who has a connection you would otherwise never encounter. For example, a customer once offered to send my resume to a colleague of his at CBS. Nothing ever came of it, but I appreciated the kind gesture. Maybe something will come from the deed of your Good Samaritan. Nothing is impossible.

3. Try, try again. If you submitted a resume to a company six months ago and never heard anything, click the resend button. Be persistent. You aren't being pushy or overly confident. You are merely saying, this is important to me, and I'm not giving up. Send that message to both yourself, and the resume receiver.

No attempt at change can hurt. The trick is to believe in your endeavors. Trust me, I am aware of the challenge that lies therein. This world can pack a punch. The rope doesn't stop here, though. As far as I'm concerned, it goes on and on and on forever. So hang tight.

Say what, Craigslist?

I admit that I have always possessed a certain wariness about Craigslist. I also admit that this skepticism is pretty much based on nothing more than the fact that you can pick up a used bouncy house, a new career, and an experienced escort, all using the same home page. Hi, recipe for a shady + sketchy explosion of interests.

Honestly, though, I've really never used it much. And by much I mean, once, in an attempt to sell a basically brand new electric guitar, because high school Helen can give it up by now. (It's still on the market by the way, should anyone be interested.)

The other day, I decided to open my mind just enough to peruse the job offerings in the New Jersey and Philadelphia areas. I found myself to be slightly ... surprised. There were a decent amount of legitimate SOUNDING possibilities, several of which I decided, what the hell, I can email Jerry to get more information on this position. (Maybe, first question: is this real or fake? ... No, really, though. Which is it?)

Of the three that I pursued further, I heard back from two, both of which had eerily similar responses: No, we won't pay you, yes we might use your work, if we don't, oh well, here is our website, we care about the earth.

Wait, I lied. One of them did offer to pay me. In trees.

Really. That's what they said. GreenAnswers.com (a real website, by the way, and I guess I can admit, from first glance, a pretty cool one, at that?) said that for every published answer their telecommuting interns produce, they will plant one tree in Central America.

Just in case you don't believe me, here is an exact excerpt from the email I received from Carl, who sends his kind regards. (Really, that's what he said. I'm merely the messenger):

"Compensation for the GreenAnswers internship is quite different from other jobs. Normally, for the general public, for every 5 questions answered on the site, GreenAnswers plants a tree in Central America. However, for every single answer submitted by an intern, GreenAnswers will plant a tree. This means that over the course of your internship, you could be responsible for hundreds of trees to be planted in Central America. To plant the trees, GreenAnswers has partnered with Trees, Water & People (TWP), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.."

I don't want to be a jerk. And Carl sounds nice and grandly sincere, which is something I can always appreciate in another human being whether I'm receiving a mass-generated email or not. But I'm having a difficult time taking this seriously. And maybe you're wondering, like I was, well, what about after the duration of the internship? Do they hire you? Do they then pay you in actual checks? Maybe ornamental shrubbery, or potted plants? (They didn't really give a straight answer in this regard. The response was more or less a "Maybe" with a general nod in the direction that this is not likely, but go for it anyway.)

In truth, I do care about our planet. I try to do my part. I try not to do anything too obviously stupid or destructive, I try to take care, to leave things as I found them, if not better. I try to appreciate that we don't own the earth so much as we are granted permission for its use, and therefore given the responsibility to protect it and tend to it. In the grand scheme of things, it's our biggest job. Otherwise, we start to lose other things that we tend to think of as important, things crucial to survival, clean air, drinkable water, things to eat, places to live. These things matter. I get that.

But a new tree in Guatemala isn't exactly the type of compensation I need for hard work. It's a heartfelt one, it's a selfless one. But it isn't one that I can live on, even partially. If it was a money tree, or maybe even just a fruit tree, you would find me with a more open mind on the matter. Until then, however.

It's alright, though. Basically the moral here is that I can stop writing Craigslist off as a total hack. Maybe it's not my most trusted resource, unless I'm looking to buy a canoe or find a new Asian reflexologist. (That one I'm not making up. Really. It's there.) But I'll scan the job listings now and then. I don't really want to get paid in ears of corn or seashells.

They could sell me on kittens, though. I could definitely get paid in kittens.

I confess ...

You guys have all heard of PostSecret, right?

In case you haven't, in 2005, this guy Frank Warren decided to give the world a place (via blog) where they could anonymously admit their biggest secrets. It could be about anything they wanted. Whatever they were compelled to confess about themselves, everyone would know it without being aware of who the secret belonged to.

Basically, Frank's a genius.

The response that Frank generated was so large that he's since published several books, chockfull of brilliance, continued to update his blog that now has over 4 million viewers, and has had excerpts from his community project displayed at the Museum of Modern Art. (If you want to see/learn more, go here.)

Every Sunday, as when it originally began, Frank updates his blog with new secrets. Brought to my attention by a co-worker of mine, this is one of the confessions that was included in the 07-31-11 post:

My heart didn't know where to begin. Leap with pride? Laugh? Acknowledge that familiar tug, that pang of oh-so-correctness that confirms that this struggle isn't just mine, isn't just ours? By the way, I wrote that. (I didn't. But I could have. Really, every one that I've worked with in the past year and a half of my life could have. So, whoever it was out there, we feel you. We really do.)

The point is, whatever is driving us to the point of chastising a nation's priorities via pastry bag (both figuratively and literally, in this case) is bigger than perhaps even I had anticipated. We aren't just disappointed in our employers; we're disappointed in each other, in the people we're forced to represent. We're let down to the point that we, or at least I, now find ourselves interested in jobs that keep us out of human contact, jobs that don't expect a true sense of service, jobs that grant us 99% solitude and silence to 1% interaction with the world around us . However, unless our ambitions bring us to some sort of monastic life, a kind of quiet I can only imagine, we're plainly out of luck. This is one of those sad-but-true moments. Take it in slow.

People say things all the time about the nature of customer service, about the hard road that it requires. I'm wondering, however, what type of employment isn't a form of just that? There is always a clientele, a merchant, a buyer and a seller, someone on the other side of the fence that is interested in what you provide, whether you're at the top of the chain or the burger-flipper. Let's not confuse ourselves into thinking that the classier the consumer the smoother the transaction. Plainly obvious, to me now more than ever, people are hard to please. They will have it their way, promptly, they will be compensated for lost time and incomplete gratification, they will harshly inform you of the ways in which you have wronged them, have dissatisfied them, and they will be disrespectful in their tone, outrageous in their requests, and dismissive on a very personal level.

So here's my thought. If we're going to be better and what we do, it would help to be better on the other side of the fence as well. I don't want to be a part of the awful people this person was referencing. I don't want to be part of the reason they feel humiliated by our societies. I don't want to take part in why they question the purpose of being here or working diligently. I don't know their position. Maybe they're me. Maybe they were caught in a bad time, maybe they lost a previous position, had a move, are still in high school. It doesn't matter. The point is, we as a whole have let them down. We were short-tempered with someone who didn't deserve it, we were taking a phone call while placing our order, we demanded or barked or brushed off. And, like they said, it's pathetic. When we have stopped having time to be basically kind together, we have altogether missed the point.

I'm not saying that if every customer I ever encountered was a complete doll that I'd be in love with my job. Far from it. But it would give me a little more faith in people. It would make other possibilities seem more, well, possible. Would it change everything, no.

But, I think it could change me.