As of this evening, I am officially a graduate school applicant. Well, as long as my transcripts and recommendations arrive in a timely fashion, that is.
It’s been kind of a roller coaster ride with regard to this decision. Originally, the plan was to go directly to grad school after I completed undergrad a little over five years ago. My original plan was to get a degree in religious studies. If I wasn’t going to try running the big machine with my MBA, I would be doing something where I could study and talk about religion all day long. If I had gone to grad school just after I finished undergrad I might have just now completed my PhD and entered the work force as unemployed. Who the hell wants to hire a guy to talk about religion all day long? I definitely would have missed out on the joys of work, specifically work in the IT industry. I more than likely would have also had absolutely no clue about the workings of the real world.
The decision to actually apply now has been really tough. Not everything about it has been tough, though. On a day-in, day-out basis, I knew that there would be one day soon when I couldn’t continue working in the customer service field. I spend all day talking to people who think that I’m beneath them because I REALLY DO want to help them resolve their problems. But after talking to people who have more money than common sense (or dignity and respect for others, for that matter), I know there will come a day when I won’t be able to do it anymore, but my only resort will be to take another customer service job.
And some days, even when I think about doing something else, maybe even going back and doing something in the IT industry, I have to fess up and acknowledge that my overall skill set has atrophied. The only marketable skill I think that I have is answering the phone. Answering the same damn questions everyday for the past three years until my throat is raw. I sometimes think that I want to do something visionary or great or leader-like. But I really wouldn’t even know how to anymore.
And, oh yeah, I get really fucking sick and tired of people I work with telling me that I should do more with myself than work where I do. I know already!
But if there are so many things out there that make it so easy to apply for grad school, why the hell haven’t I done it before?
Maybe the process itself is so daunting. Think about this: You have to spend all day filling out paperwork telling an unknown group of admissions experts how great you are and that your shit smells like cinnamon rolls. Here! Let me drop a couple for you right now. You have to get recommendations from people who don’t really know you. I mean, how can they know me when everyday I spend at least five minutes staring into the bathroom mirror wondering who the hell I am? I’m lucky I don’t think that I’m a burglar and start attacking myself. And also it’s a tremendous amount of money that I could use to buy my girlfriend jewelry. Speaking of her, she’s really going to appreciate me doing things like studying instead of talking to her. Graduate school — the perfect thing to screw up a relationship.
Okay, so now I’ve come full circle in my thinking. What’s the final verdict? Why did I hit that button that said “Submit Application”? Ultimately, I think it came down to two things.
First, who knows what could happen if I applied? I might get accepted; I might get denied. To put it statistically, the odds of getting accepted to graduate school are a hell of a lot better than winning the new North Carolina lottery. Even if I didn’t get accepted, that’s better than not applying and asking myself for the next forty or fifty years what could have been. Sure, getting rejected could hurt, but I’ll get over that. But I wouldn’t be able to get over missing out on the possibility of learning the most interesting thing on the planet, having a job that makes me feel alive and awake and being able to have the money to do the things that I’ve always wanted to do.
The second thing is that I believe. When I say “I believe,” I don’t mean “I have faith.” When I say “I believe,” I mean “I know.” Saying you have faith is like accepting that the odds are stacked against you, but you just might hit the jackpot still. Plenty of people wander around “having faith” in God, but functionally they are atheists. It’s like, “I know you’re not out there, G, but if you are, I’m with you.” But the difference is that I know. I know that I am the man to run the big machine. I know that I am meant to get the education, the training, the credentials to seal the deal. I have no doubt in this. Now, I may still get a rejection letter. But that doesn’t say that I’m not the man. I may already have everything I need to run the show. Or in the grand scheme of things, an alternate path may be the one that I should take. Whether it’s due to the unseen hand of some divine being or my own damned stubborness, I know.
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