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What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger

Or So They Say

By Lillian RosePublished 5 years ago 3 min read
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What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, or so they say. However, what they don't teach you in school is how many mistakes you are bound to make when you enter into the real world. They prepare you for the next class, then the next, with little to no knowledge on what comes after you finish school. To be completely honest, not everyone is even cut out for continuing their education. Some of us launch straight into a job field after we graduate high school, ultimately skipping a post secondary education. Though some of the students in question achieve their own goals just as well as the next person, most jobs with favorable benefits and pay require a college degree.

I'll use myself as an example. Since I graduated high school, I've technically attended three colleges and had four different jobs. Mind you, I've done well for myself, but out of all three colleges, all I have to show for my hard work is an Office Support Certificate and a Degree Diploma. Unfortunately, when searching for jobs, no one seems to pay mind to a "Degree Diploma," though I'm very thankful for the knowledge I gained whilst obtaining it.

I've been through a lot in the five years since graduating high school, but the biggest lesson I have learned is that every one of us is bound to make mistakes. Until we make them, it's hard telling what the actual outcome of our choices will be. But our mistakes are what make us human.

Now, let's go back about four months… I made an amazing change, ultimately to further myself and to help my family as well. It was a leap of faith. I changed jobs and was on my way to a career. I quit a job I had been doing for over four years to start a well-paid job with benefits. Not many employers will pay for all of your training along with life insurance and health insurance from the start of being hired. At the time, it was an amazing decision. Never would I have thought that in four months it would come to an end. The job was in the local Sheriff’s office in their Dispatch center. I would be a call taker, answering non-emergency and emergency phone lines. Now, obviously, this job would be quite stressful and could take quite the toll on my mental health. At the time of being hired, I felt that the pros outweighed the cons. Me and five other trainees started out working four days a week in a classroom learning the different websites and software that we would utilize for the job. The classroom training lasted a good four weeks, with minimal stress, and we learned a lot in that short amount of time. But the moment of truth arrived, we had to actually start taking calls! Once we were taking calls with trainers, the stress set in. First one of us left, then another, until there were only three out of the six remaining. I was the second to leave. The stress got to me—to a point where I was having a hard time going to work and even eating regularly.

And therein lies my solution to this major stressor in my life: Quitting my job. Now, normally, I'm a very prepared person. I don't make too many impulsive decisions without a backup plan. So this was it. I had this huge opportunity before me, and I was about to hand it all away, simply because I couldn't handle it. So that afternoon, I emailed a supervisor and informed them that I wouldn't be there that night. They called later on and scheduled a meeting to make it official.

That was that. I became unemployed. Now it became up to me with what my next step would be.

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About the Creator

Lillian Rose

Hi! I’m Lillian and I’m just getting started out with writing again, I thought I’d try my hand at writing stories here.

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