Mediocre Man vs. The Bard

Shakespeare wrote "To thine ownself be true."

This has always been among my favorite lines from Hamlet (second probably only to the speech given to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Act II, scene ii 293-310). This whole notion has been ringing in my head in the days leading up to my impending bout of unemployment. The tricky bit is, I am not exactly sure how to be true to myself insofar as the future and what path I want it to take. I have no passion. There is nothing I can envision myself doing with at least some enjoyment for the rest of my life. I have already wasted ten years of my life in a dead-end job, working for a company I cant stand, doing menial shit for pathetic annual raises (after 10 years I am finally making almost $5 an hour more than when I started).

I refuse to waste another ten years doing something I don't want to do and dreading Monday mornings. I want to look forward to going to work; I want to feel like my job has a purpose greater than the logistical organization of raw materials. At the very least I want to be able to wake up without cold dread at the prospect of apathetically slogging through another day at the factory.

This indecisiveness has carried over into my education as well. Last night in our first ENG-121 class we were asked to introduce ourselves to the class and state what our major was. Everyone in the class was either in some sort of business program, accounting program, or management program. My answer: "Hi, I'm Rob and I'm majoring in Liberal Arts until I can figure out what I want to be when I grow up." It elicited a few chuckles and some commiserative head-nodding commentary. 

Heather over at Dementia Specialist writes: "Security is being true to yourself, and I decided long ago that I wasn’t going to take anti-depressants so that I could work some job that I hated, just because I had a 401K or a $25 deductible or 10 days vacation or an annual 3% raise. Because it’s all crap to me!"  And I couldn't possibly agree more!

Now if only I could figure out what I want to be when I grow up.