Dear soon-to-be-bachelors,

2:54 AM Unknown 0 Comments

I finished my undergraduate degree on October 2013 and just started working on March 2014, so that's about 5 months being unemployed. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I guess I have a certain "quality" that makes people don't want to hire me. In those 5 months are tens of sign-ups, waking-ups before sunrise, three hour rides, written tests, group discussions, interviews, ...and rejections – the process they call recruitment. Everytime – and I do mean everytime, I'm in my suit, in pants I hate and shirt I never wear, sitting there hearing the recruiting presentation, I hate my self. I kept thinking "why do I have to do this?". Why do I have to fake myself? Why do I have to wear clothes I'm not comfortable with? Why do I have to struggle this much? Why do I have to stoop so low? Just for what, money?  And all that, only to find myself feeling miserable. "Unfortunately, we don't find you suitable for the position". Unless you are very lucky, you will find that a lot in the near future...should you choose the path.

And then I had this one recruitment process. It was for multinational, rich, well formed company, one of the best in what it does. I got into the last recruitment stage which is a presentation in front of panel. I prepared it so well, I gave it my all. I spent five days of preparations with very few hours of sleep. I was so fed up with rejection I told myself, "This will be it!". My presentation went very well. One of the assessor said, "This is the best presentation we had all day". I went home with hope as high as the building. I was really confident I would finally get hired that I wasted almost two months waiting for the announcement. But guess what? It never came - the announcement. Because of some internal issues, the company decided to cancel the recruitment program. You can imagine how I felt. All those high expectation were only there to stab me in the end. Life has its way to kick you in the guts when you least expect it.

Long story short, I finally got a job. Not a month later, almost half a year after graduation, I and my college friends had a little reunion. We all have jobs now. Not a year passed by but already I could see how changed we are. We used to talk about funny stories, teasing each other about unrequited love, classes and teachers, now that we've graduated we talk about money! Back then who's richer never mattered, but now the talks are all about salary. What the hell's wrong with us? Funny isn't it, how we were so willing to change ourselves just to keep up with the standard.

I know it sounds funny especially when it comes from a guy who spent five months seeking jobs, but please listen: don't do it for money. Don't make your life miserable for a second longer just for printed papers. Ask yourself if money doesn't matter, what do you want to do? Then make a plan on how to make it possible. Money will come as a factor that decides the difficulty level of making what you want come true, but never make it as the end goal. If you work only for money, you're wasting your time, you're wasting your life. It's not worth it, you'll end up hating yourself for doing what you're doing. No matter how much money you can make, it will not help you overcome the feeling of doing something you hate.

Follow your passion – the golden advice everybody is tired to hear. I wasted 30 minutes trying to figure out what advice that sounds not as boring as this one, but I could not make one out. Think about what you want to spend your life doing. Don't limit your options by your major, or your parent's expectations, or what your friends might think. Follow your passion, that's all I can say.

Look, I am not trying to convince you that money is not important. Take this extreme scenario, imagine how you can survive in this civilized society with zero money without being a burden to your friends and family. You can't, but still that doesn't give us any good reason why we have to spend most of our limited time in this life pursuing it. Money matters, and arguably important. But somethings are not worth to trade it off. One of those is your happiness.

So, my dear friends, I hope you caught my points. It is my wish that you will make this thoughts of mine into consideration while you're deciding what you will do in the time of uncertainty that lies ahead. If only I realized this earlier, I would have done things differently.

Money is important. Being rich is not. Your time is limited. Do what you love.
Having said all that, I rest my case.