The Working Dreamer
By Whitney Deal
Hate your job?
Do you often wonder how in the hell you ended up where you are?
Have 15 minutes to spare?
Perfect. Clear the distractions around you and focus in on my tale.
THE MATRIX
Let’s take it from the very top and break down the U.S. schooling system. First, we began with Pre-Kindergarten (the good ole’ days where you actually got to nap after lunch). Then moving up to Kindergarten, 1st grade, 2nd grade, and a gradual continuation to the 12th grade. The final level of required schooling by law and official completion of a High School diploma.
Many of us can recall the sensation of walking across the stage — anticipating the reckless college escapades that awaited us. Ahh college, the oxymoron and pivotal starting point of my life as an adult. “Never-have-I-ever” felt such a strong sense of optimism and catastrophe simultaneously. Immersing myself in debt, yet hoping for a 6-figure job! Crazy, right?
The general image of college I perceived was to study hard, party even harder, pass my classes, walk across the stage, and begin my dream position within the major of my choosing. HA! Little did this “freshman” know that upon graduation, life would instantly become a whirlwind of confusion. Needing experience to get the job, but needing the job to get experience. Once you get the job you have to go back to school to keep the job, and the saga continues. Now to those who are daring enough to totter that path, and have the funding to do so, POWER TO YOU. But, what about those who don’t?
According to census data, 209.3 million people in the United States are 25 years old or older, and 66.9 million have a bachelor’s degree or higher. That means about 68 percent do not have a bachelor’s degree.
The U.S. Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics looked at the same question in a 2016 longitudinal study that continued to follow young people to the age of 27. By that age, 72 percent of respondents did not have bachelor's degrees. Four in every ten college students drop out before graduating, often with debt loads they will struggle to repay without a degree.
May I please emphasize, “often with debt loads they will struggle to repay without a degree?”
Unfortunately accurate, this struggle also extends to those who have obtained college degrees as well. Numerous friends of mine are waiting tables, substitute teaching, driving for Lyft, even working at warehouses ALL while having degrees in psychology, theatre, biology, and business. So where do I fit into this? I regrettably, due to family trauma, did not complete my bachelor’s degree. What I did complete though is my signature, binding me to a heap of student debt.
If you grasp the phrase, “A man who doesn’t work, doesn’t eat”, then the following step for me was to get a job…or two…maybe three.
Now having to pay my phone bill, gas, utilities, rent, and fresh student loans, my monthly financial statements went through the roof! My bills in totality were $1,200 and although this number isn’t alarming to most, the plot thickens. I was only making MINIMUM WAGE.
Minimum wage — the devil in its purest form. 6.25 PER HOUR. Based on my calculations, that means if I worked an average of 25 hours weekly (because full-time is hard to come by in minimum wage jobs ) I only made 625 dollars for the entire month before taxes.
Obviously, I couldn’t manage so my lights were cut off. FPL dropped my ass like the pin on the Sprint commercial, and all my other collectors wanted a piece too. Soon I got eviction notices on my door,requested four different “one-time” extensions for my phone bill, and was asking for three dollars and forty-three cent on Pump 10. I was in the weeds, and no one was cooking in the kitchen with me.
Desperation became an understatement, and depression and oppression became real. I was bound and broke without money, yet working nearly every day. I was robbing Peter to pay Paul and accumulating a pricey tab in collections, ALL while serving customers who dropped my rent on a family dinner. Do you know what it’s like to be a tiger in a cage? To understand your greatness and fury yet have to contain and domesticate your power and potential?
THE DREAM
“Call us brutal, Sick, Sadistic,
And grotesquely optimistic,
Cause way down deep inside,
we’ve got a dream.”
For some reason, the song “I’ve Got a Dream” on Disney’s Tangled soundtrack, resonates in my heart. I ask you, what’s your dream?
If I can be entirely honest with you, my dream saved my life, and it continues to on a daily basis. It gives me hope in a place of hopelessness.
I can remember working for Waffle House, getting eggs and cheese in my eyes from scrubbing pans. Having my customers ridicule me because grits were on my forehead despite my excellent customer service efforts. With tears welling in my eyes, I ran to the back room with a burdened heart crying out to God,” Why am I here?”. He responded, “Remember your ultimate goal. Your workplace is momentary and transitional, NOT permanent.”
Let’s be real for a second, that response sounds good and all, yes, I was encouraged by it, but what about the Goliaths in the land I battled against every day? It’s extremely challenging to tame my ego knowing the work I’m producing is inadequate for my potential and talents. Not to mention my boss demanding more efforts that my paycheck won’t reflect. I was exhausting myself for a bi-quarterly 25-cent raise!
Not to mention good ole’ Mom and Dad.
I don’t think I’ll encounter anyone in my lifetime who will ask me as many questions as my parents:
“When you gonna get a good paying job?”
“When are you getting married?”
“When can you pay us back for all these loans?”
“What’s the retirement plan like on your job?”
Retirement...with the cheese pans? Thirty years of scrubbing CHEESE PANS? I fully understand the structure of indentured servitude that is the “working” system, and I’m not interested. Sign over your life for a W-2, work for 30 + years, and hope the laws concerning your IRA and SSI haven’t changed. And here’s the one question that boils my blood faster than any kettle, “When are you getting a full-time with healthcare?”
Ahh healthcare, the most important yet politically misconducted topic of them all. I was one of many millennials without healthcare, and believe me, it’s a scary thing. I took pride in knowing natural remedies to cure sicknesses, but it was only because I literally could not afford to get sick. The late twenties, after 26 when you’re no longer on your parents’ healthcare plan, is a scary time if you don’t have a full-time gig with benefits.
Believe me, I know why the caged bird sings. It sings because it can’t get a break from the self-supposed pattern of failure,fear of disappointment from family, feeling inadequate compared to “successful” friends, and the ongoing stress of making ends meet. It sings a song of sorrow, yet it wakes up every day, puts on a mask, and goes out into the world to fight another round. But have you ever wondered why that bird keeps singing?
“The caged bird sings with a fearful trill, of things unknown but longed for still, and his tune is heard on the distant hill, for the caged bird sings of freedom.”
THE TAKEOVER
What does freedom sound like to you? Would it be a heavy metal tune or easy like Sunday morning? The lovely thing is, the tune of freedom is perceived by the composer. You, my friend, are responsible for the melody of your freedom.
I failed my way to a place of realization that I had full ownership of my life, and I wasn’t going to waste it. I altered my thinking through various “self-help” books, podcasts, and motivational blogs. I changed my outlook of work to being a place of opportunity to fund my dreams, and I never scrubbed a cheese pan faster!
My work began after I clocked out of my establishment, and I was dreaming bigger with fresh found innovation. Acknowledging that I couldn’t continue appeasing my relationships and be fully organic to myself, I let them go. This fight was narrowed down to Whitney versus doubt, negativity, comparison, self-sabotage, fear, inadequacy, statistics, and even at times...myself. I had to feed my inner self what I wanted it to be, and starve everything it wasn’t. I found mentorship and guidance from people who already succeeded in my goals, and adopted the motto, “Don’t give me constructive criticism if you’ve never built what I’m building.”
This is the time for millennials. Myself and YOU can break free from that cage and spread our wings for the world to behold. No longer do we have to be confined to the configuration of success our family lineage adhered to or discouraged by our distinctive calling, even if it requires an abnormal path! We will find a way to make income from our gifts and talent. We can and are making money that doesn’t require misery and depression. Say hello to young entrepreneurs and business owners like Zandra Cunningham, political candidates and representatives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Oscar winners, six-figure script writers, young millionaires, magazine owners, and WORLD CHANGERS.
I see you reader, and your path is aimed upwards. Let that hunger for success drive you to lands no one has discovered.
Of course, it’s easier said than done, but we can do ALL things through Christ (or who or whatever you might believe in) who strengthens us! You and I have to surpass just believing… we have to transcend to a mindset of knowing. We have to stay encouraged and keep our spirits high despite temporary uncomfortable settings. You may be undergoing a troublesome season unknowingly to many, and even if it’s one of obscurity, it’s a period of character development and refinement.
I’m obsessed with mustard seeds. They are rumored to be the smallest of seeds, about 1-2 millimeters in size, yet they manifest into a plant reaching 30 feet tall! Never doubt your potential. Although being buried and planted have the same environmental surroundings, some people remain just that — buried and feeling sorry for themselves. ! I ask you, are you having a funeral or a planting?
Working Dreamer, I leave you with this: Though hope is frail, it’s hard to kill. Always have hope and faith even when you feel as though you’ve lost yourself. I see you going past the bare minimum of surviving — you’re thriving.
Solidify the dream and get to work!
Meet the Writer
Whitney Deal is an actress in the Atlanta area. Whitney has attended the Musical and Dramatic Academy, in Los Angeles, for Acting and Performing Arts, and has recently developed a love for writing. She wrote, produced, and directed her first play "Sinners" in October of 2017. Whitney is enrolled in various writing classes such as Creative Writing and Screenwriting. Stay tuned for her stories and future behind the pen!
