When I was a kid, I discovered that you could drop out of school at sixteen. This was wonderful news for me. An oasis in the desert, if you will. My ultimate goal in life was to stop school at sixteen (because it was useless anyway), get a job, get a place to live, get married, and live happily ever after.
When sixteen rolled around, I acknowledged that I was far too immature to accomplish such a feat, grudgingly admitted that I enjoyed school a bit, and continued my education.
My next plan in life was to stop school for a year after high school, work and earn money, and then go to school. That plan was a bust when I couldn't find a job (partially due to the fact that I applied to very few places, but I wasn't exactly the most job-searching-savvy person around).
So I went to school. Applied to two places, got accepted to both, earned scholarships for both. But one school was prettier, smaller, and farther away from home than the other, so that was where I went.
While I was there, I again tried to get jobs. My first was on the campus housekeeping team. That lasted one semester after nearly falling asleep in my Monday and Wednesday classes because of the early hours I had to keep for work. I switched to working in the biology lab and picked up some tutoring jobs along the way.
My first summer in school I couldn't find a job (yet again due to my horrible job-finding skills), and my second summer was nearly the same, except for one place: the college cafeteria. I worked that job, thinking I'd keep it for the summer and school year and find something better the next summer.
The next summer rolled around and I still had no job. I worked at the cafeteria. The following summer ended up the same way. Job at the cafeteria, with a few others thrown in for variety and spare cash. After graduation, still unable to find a job, and planning to move across the country soon anyway, I continued my glorious career in the school food-place and managed to find some compassionate soul who also hired me to work in their food-place. I was on my way to becoming food-place queen. It also turns out that it's easier to get a job if you have a degree. People want their servers and busboys to be oddly well-educated.
Two and a half years later, after a succession of food-place jobs, I came to a revelation while clearing my millionth table that day at the current food job. The revelation was this:
If I have to clean one more table, I will transform into a howling King Kong of rage and flip every table in this building.
So, howling King Kong of rage that I am, I quietly went through the rest of my shift and aggressively wanted to quit. So tomorrow I'm quitting. And then I will move on to my next food-place job because I already have it lined up and it turns out tourists will give you lots of money if you smile at them and bring them alcohol.
The point is, though, that I have never been happier over a decision that sixteen year old me made. Seriously, I made some terrible decisions at sixteen. I had horrible taste in everything. If I were to write a letter to myself at that age, it would go something like this: "Stay in school. You suck."
But because now that I have a college education, I'm Hireable by people because if I made it through school, surely that means I can be trained. So now I can make money. Which I can use to pay for more school and be broke forever so I can get a better job, because I want some letters after my name, and there's relatively few people with letters after their name clearing tables for a living.
So thanks, past me. For making this life of other people's food in all likelihood temporary. I'd say I owe you one, but there's so so much you owe me instead.
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