BRAIN FOOD: Personal Resume

Well here it is...my 3 year anniversary of my college graduation. The past three years have had some highs, but some MAJOR lows. Post-graduate life sucks, especially when you graduate into a shitty economy like most of us have. I've basically been in meltdown mode since graduation and it wasn't until recently that I realized why.

The Black community's obsession with resumes.

Since graduation, I have yet to land a, what my friend Kelley would call, a RPJ or 'real people's job'. I've done some freelance (right now Im at Gucci's website) , lucky enough to land a paying internship at American Express Publishing, and had a semi-RPJ at French Connection's website for almost a year and a half. My resume is quite stellar down to my community service, prob shits on most of the AUC c/o '07, I can name drop like nobody's business (kissyface to Herve Pierre, creative director of Carolina Herrera) and still no RPJ.

Like most of my peers, we have been raised to be successful. However, we tend to only equate success with becoming a lawyer,doctor,banker, or teacher (depending on who you ask). When I was a kid, I was always THAT kid. Ya'know, the kid that always says some ol' blue collar isht when the teacher asks what everyone wants to be when they grow up.

::clearing throat:: Ok class. So let's go around the circle. What do you want to be when you grow up?

"Lawyer!" "Pediatrician!" "Microbiologist!" "NBA Coach" "POTUS" (me) "I wanna dance for Alvin Ailey and do hair!" ::classroom wide side eye ensues::

I liked school only for topics I was interested in. I made a pact w/ myself that I wasn't going to college in 8th grade. My great-grandpa was a college grad as is alot of my fam members, parents included (Shaw&St. Augustine's) But for me, it was necessary for them to go to college because of the fields they went into. The only higher Ed I needed to be a dancer was to get into Eleone Connection or Ailey II. My cousin is the owner/founder of the Dance Theater of Harlem, so I KNEW this dancer thing could work.

My mom got wind of this and was NOT having it. Firstly, college is "what we do" and number two, dancers were broke. This backlash subsequently ended my tenures at Freedom Theater and Philadanco and I told my mom that I would become a psycologist. I liked my psych class (I only went about 20 times the entire school year) and even took a psych class at a community college one summer. I soon realized that I was really just into the innerworkings of humans and devouring documentaries began to fulfill that for me.

Fast-foward. I'm stuck in college and pick Marketing as my major b/c it was the most broad and I got to study human behavior. I was always a go hard type and started interning the summer before I started college. I was passionate about fashion, so that was the goal. However, being a B-School major with all of my classmates interning at PWC,Phizer,Goldman Sachs,etc, and getting PAID the insecurity starting setting in. My classmates almost died when I said that every summer internship I had was unpaid, DIED. I was perfectly content, but the side-eyes made me feel like I was stupid and devaluing my talent.

Now we're here, 3 years later and my friends/classmates are buying homes,going on fab vacas,graduating from law school, going on to PhD programs, and here I am paying rent for the first time in three months (thanks Mom). I love the life I lead, but when Im around over achievers, my inner hype man takes a bathroom break. My old rooommate Toni and my first mentor out of college, Bonnie Morrison (google her) shared things with me that would keep my meltdowns at bay, but nothing has resonated with me like the words from a random stranger at Coachella.

We met as we were illegally charging our cellphones and just fell into convo. We somehow got on the topic of her hating her job as a Spanish teacher. This is where she slayed me (paraphrasing)--->

"We spend so much time worrying about careers and we aren't focusing on what we like to do. I'm over worrying about my professional resume and working hard to build my personal resume. Do everything that I love to do and hope that I can make money from it to sustain me"

I could've started shouting right then and there! Thats exactly what my entire life has been about, building my personal resume. I could make $35,000 my entire life and be A-Ok. Money never came before my happiness. I want to see, do, explore all of these wild ideas in my head and hopefully inspire someone around me to do the same. I know everybody isn't a crazy hippie like me and thats quite alright, but do me a favor:

Never, ever walk up to me and ask me what I do or ask for my card. Live my life is what I do and journal scribblings/tweets/photos are my business cards.



So what say you good people? Whats up with our (Black folk) obsession with position,money,and power? How does your professional resume compare to your personal resume? Why is 'what do you do' the first question we ask when we meet people? What legacy will linger longer, your career or the way you lived your life?

The floor is open kiddies...