On Gratitude, Guilt and Acceptance

[This was written and ready to be posted at the start of August. I was just going to insert gifs/images and then move on. It's now been so long I can't bear to spend any longer on it, so I'm afraid we're just getting a lot of text here. I also haven't re-read it since I wrote it, so I have no idea how it's going to come across.]

Song of the day: Something Good - alt-J (pretty much the whole album)

Currently reading: I don't think I can bear to say Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance  again, so I won't.

I worry as I start writing this post, having been considering the topic whilst watching south England zoom by out the train window, that parts of this entry may come across as annoying. I'm worried that it'll sound like I'm bragging, or this will just be taken as a case of "_____ people problems" (not entirely sure how to fill the _____ though). Whilst it is a little bit of the latter, I do mean everything I'm saying here out of the bottom of my heart, and I absolutely do not want people to think the below is a proper problem. It's not, it's just a case of what's in my mind at the moment that I need to work through. Let me explain.

As you can probably guess from the title of the blog, I am twenty-something. Specifically, my early twenty-somethings. Two weeks after I quit my MA course I had an interview for my current job. A month and four rounds later I was offered a place, and in February  I started on a very comfortable salary of over £30k per year, although I won't go into exact details. My job affords me a good deal of flexibility regarding hours and working from home so long as I get the work done, it's varied and project-based so I won't get bored doing the same thing for months on end, and provides quite a bit of responsibility and provision for moving upwards in the company. So what’s the problem?

[The problem is we've been stopped in Haslemere for nearly 10 minutes now… why aren't we moving? The guard is just walking around on the platform outside.]

I graduated from university last year with a 2.I in BSc Anthropology. I didn't know what I wanted to do, so I applied for an MA in Film and Philosophy that I thought would be right up my street. It quickly became apparent - in only a matter of weeks - that it wasn't the right course for me, and that combined with other factors made me drop out of the course in November. It was a big, scary decision at the time (I'd only spent a month telling everyone I was doing an MA, and there I was dropping out because I couldn't take it). One of the additional factors, although not the only one, was the cost. I couldn't really afford to live (in central London nonetheless) on what I was earning and spend over £8000 in tuition fees, even with housing benefit.

So in November I decided I needed to get a full time job. I didn't particularly want one, but the fear of being "homeless" was there. I should note that this is actually a pretty insulting thing for me to think. I wouldn't have been homeless by any stretch of the imagination. I would have just moved back in with my parents in Liverpool rather than living in a nice place in central London. My fear of not being able to afford rent and losing my flat, whilst very real, cannot compare to the fear felt by people who do not have parents/anyone willing or able to take them in who may be in similar or worse situations to the one I was in. "Homeless" should not have been a word I was using, especially not for the possibility of having to do what millions of young people in the UK are currently doing. The fact that I'd been able to live in London a whole six months after graduating university is more than a lot of people are able to do. I wouldn't have been homeless, I wouldn't really have been in any distress. I just wouldn't be doing exactly what I wanted to do.

Two weeks after I made this decision, and only one since I'd stopped messing around and actually sent out a lot of applications, I was informed that I'd made it through to the next round for a job I'd applied for only the day before. I knew nothing about the industry or what the job would entail, all I noticed to begin with was the benefits package. It was a city job - a type of job I always claimed I'd hate to do and would never apply for - but I was feeling a bit desperate. A week or so later, after an hour or so's research into what the career would entail and a re-read of my application answers, and I had an online interview. A week after that I was informed that I'd made it through to the final round of the application and went for an assessment day. I had a horrible migraine and told my interviewer I would probably be good at the job because I like playing computer games where I build empires through strategy and trade rather than war.  The next day, during my birthday tea (literally cups of tea - I holed up in a café for the afternoon and saw various friends at various times), I was offered the job. Two months later, I'm at a networking event making pizza having written a post on here about having to find an appropriate outfit. And I've been there ever since.

My first role was London-based, and quite nicely only 35 minutes journey from my house. The one I'm currently on, however, is based on the south coast, and requires me to travel down on a Monday and stay in a hotel, travelling back on Thursday nights. The hotel is often quite nice - it's a step up from the Travellodges that I'm used to for sure. And this is where the start of my "problem", or probably more truthfully, "yuppie-guilt" is coming from. I used to only order room service for dinner, but starting last week I decided I liked getting breakfast in my room too. It's only available in one of the two hotels I stay in as far as I'm aware, so I did it whilst I could. I've had a terrible cold this week, and so on Tuesday I stayed in and worked from the hotel room, rather than disturbing and infecting everyone. This meant I also ordered lunch to my room, and I was in when housekeeping came to clean.

I only started to notice this recently, but all the hotel staff that do the less-nice , presumably minimum-wage jobs (the room service orders, clearing up and housekeeping etc), they're all my age. And probably a little older too, but maybe only by a couple of years. There I was, sat on a very comfy hotel bed (one of two in my fairly large room), having just polished off a very delicious club sandwich and fries and now focussing on my [work] laptop, whilst a girl maybe a year or two older than me cleaned the room around me. I started coughing at one point and made a comment about how much I hated colds, and she told me that she thought she was getting one but really couldn't afford to be off work.

I get called "ma'am" by people older than me. And I just feel guilty.

The reason, I think, is two-fold. The first regards the thinking surrounding my guilt. I feel like I should be doing what they're doing. I had only been working for just over a year prior to this job, and hardly even part-time. I feel (or felt, I'm starting to change my mind) that I hadn't "done my time" in minimum wage service jobs. We hear so often nowadays how difficult it is for young adults once they graduate from university, with thousands upon thousands being unable  to find any sort of work, and many being stuck in minimum-wage jobs for many years more than they would want. And those are the "lucky ones". Well, I'm even luckier than that. None of that has applied to me. I didn't have to move back in with my parents, and I pretty much instantly went into a good job once I started searching for one. I haven't done my couple of years of uncertainty/misery, haven't spent any longer than six months worrying about where the rent money is going to come from, and I start to feel like I don't deserve what I've got. I keep saying "I'm lucky".

Well, I am lucky. But I need to also stop claiming that to be the be-all and end-all of why I am where I am today. This is a problem particularly with a lot of smart young women I've noticed. We don't own our achievements. I got a good degree from a good university. I worked hard, I did some time in the service industry (if only a little) when I had to pay my rent, and then I went out and impressed a company enough to get through four rounds of application and get a job. As of last Friday, I passed my probation period (yay!). I am good at my job. These things aren't all just down to luck, they're down to me. Luck wouldn't have had me pass my exams had I not put in the work, luck wouldn't have paid the rent had I not gone out and done the jobs that I needed to do but didn't particularly like, luck wouldn't have got me through the entire interview process. There was a four hour assessment centre, they must have liked something about me!

I think part of the problem is that we're taught it's not polite to brag. We're to be modest, and don't over-talk about our achievements. But for a lot of young women, this turns into don't acknowledge that you had something to do with them. There's also the additional fact that I know a lot of very smart, clever people. A lot of my friends went to Cambridge, or other very good universities. My sister graduated only this year from Cambridge with a degree in Natural Sciences, and she is one of the hardest working, smartest people I know. She worked incessantly, and my family had to make sure to get her to take breaks at Christmas, Easter and New Year. In comparison to her, I didn't work much at all. But I need to remember that I still worked! I don't feel like I've achieved much because a lot of my friends have achieved great things - good degrees from good universities, good jobs, a highly sought-after pupillage to name just a few. We've done extremely well and should be proud of ourselves, not pass it all off as luck.

But it is important to realise that there is an element of luck involved. I am under no illusions that everyone who worked as I did would find themselves in the same position. There are plenty of people who work much, much harder than I do, who are still unable to live where they want, or get the job that they want, or afford the schooling that they want. These are people who desperately need to afford their housing, or have hungry mouths to feed, or need to get out of their parents' house because they just can't cope any longer. There are so many people at the moment who put in application after application, who are more than adequately capable, who just hear back nothing. I in no way believe myself to be smarter, a harder worker, or in any way better than those people. Those people are my friends, my colleagues, my family. They're everywhere. I can't forget that I am in a very privileged position and I should be very thankful for that.

What I shouldn't do is forget that it wasn't all down to luck, and that I am a very capable human being.