The World Is My Oyster

The world was looking pretty odd there for a while. It turns out that going to grad school is pretty awesome fun, but it comes with some uncertainty and costs afterward. The 11 months following grad school were irritating, uncertain, and anxiety-inducing. I was only able to find jobs that paid almost half of what I made before grad school. Considering the prior two years were some of the most fun, fulfilling, and engaging of my life, it is difficult to be critical of my decision to attend grad school. But right now, everything is finally looking great.

Even though I would rather be on the road with enough money in the bank to travel for a year or two, the job I ended up landing and the security I am now inline for feels like a worthy substitute. The unpopularity of my backup plan to finding a good job stalled and destroyed my potential to go see the world and find the intellectual space to develop my own path.

The chance of eventual failure of said plan was higher than I would like to admit, but the chances for success were also quite high. I needed to either find a job or find the space to carve my own path entirely.

Since I was robbed of carving my own path and creating that space for myself, I am now stuck with what I have been given: An amazing job with great pay, smack-dab in my field, with incredible potential for growth. Not bad a bad place to be, considering this is exactly where I hoped not to be.

My desire for something else came from my realization that the working world is a shit show. It’s a donkey punch to the gut. It’s a system of raping and pillaging the mind, body, and soul. I had a unique window to experience something else for a while, to see new things, and to live life a little differently. And while I blew it, there is still a chance that I will still make that opportunity for myself.

The place I am now looks safe, intentional, and successful. And it is. For a while there, I was worried that grad school actually decreased my market value. And by certain viewpoints, it has. But my per hour value, after 11 months of fighting vigorously to not lose ground, has gone up. I finally found a job that actually pays more than before grad school, and the job is great.

The thing that those around me who bit, scratched, fought, and drug me down to prevent me from doing as an alternative don’t realize is that they paved the way for an absolutely wicked midlife crisis. I can feel and predict it. As odd as it sounds, I never really had a teenaged and 20-something youth, like many of my fellow Millennial’s have been privileged to. I have little snippets and moments, but never prolonged periods of safe, unadulterated youth. I have always been worried about bills, responsibilities, and following that straight and narrow pathway to conventional success.

So, while I am in a safe place and have found that success that I had before, I have instead endangered my future and my desire to domesticate. While I am satisfied for the moment, successful, and have found that winning job again, I can already feel the steel of the shackles wearing into my skin, once again. And for a still-kind-of-young male, in a world where men are more shamed, more directionless, and more anxious than in any prior generation, that is a very dangerous seed to plant.

I predict that the stunting of my path to finding new and different spaces will backfire in the future. I was already unsure if kids were going to be in my future, if the domestic life was at all for me, but now that I am trapped behind a desk and the crushing weight of domestic debts and conventions, I am afraid I may perpetually long for freedom from the prison I have been put in. Or at least seek evidence that there is something else out there. Since I am not here voluntarily, no matter how good it is, I may never be able to buy in. On the surface I will be satisfied and successful, but in the depths of my psyche, I will be constantly planning and plotting my exit from the prison of domesticity, stationarity, and conventionality that I have been stuffed and chained into.

The world is my oyster, once again.

The Value of Things

I’ve been doing some spring cleaning. I am so sick of clutter and crap, I’m junking everything I possibly can. I’m ruthlessly cutting anything out of my life that isn’t a necessary tool or a thing associated with a distinct and powerful memory. Everything heavy, clunky, tiresome, unused, redundant, useless, ugly, worn out, stained, and/or scratched must go. All this crap that I have accumulated over the years has to leave via trash, recycle, donation, or by sale. The first three are pretty easy to navigate. The latter is the difficult game.

While going through all of my shit, I have been trying to figure out why I have it. Why do I have three cookie sheets? How did I get 200 DVDs? What do I do with stuff that seems useful, but doesn’t have any resale value? How do I know what to sell and what to trash?

Well, it appears that most of the shit I have wasted time and money accumulating has little to no discernible value. Nobody wants a used pasta spoon. Nobody will pay money for one or four of my laundry baskets. There aren’t many buyers out there for old plastic, toy starships from Star Trek. And certainly, nobody gives a flying shit about my old bed sheets for my old twin sized bed from high school. Especially in the age of bed bugs (never had ‘em, but strangers don’t know that. Plus, who would buy used bed sheets, anyway?)

In trying to sort and discard, I have learned quickly how toxic and meaningless the habits of the American consumer are. I have typically been pretty minimalist in my shopping approaches. I typically buy things that I need to make something. I probably ended up with three cookie sheets because I was making a big batch of cookies or got some insanely good deal and got three in a set. Still, the process of determining value has been an anthropological study of… myself.

I wish I could say that the things I own are valuable, but the truth is: Almost none of it is. As I have learned, the only things that hold value are recent technology, name-brand tools, and a very select number of collectibles. The rest of it is just the modern equivalent of debitage. It’s just crap that says, “Yep, I’m here, I’m a modern American, and I have mastered living day-to-day."

When I go through all my old crap, I realize that I was living well. But when I contrast my old ways with the new ways I’ve learned to live, the way I used to live seems preposterous. The things I spent money on are now just money lost. It’s redundancy on top of redundancy; meaningless gadget begetting meaningless gadget; and high-dollar impulse purchase made instantly valueless by the end of a return policy grace period.

Things that hold their value are brand-name tools, Star Wars DVD’s, and professional-grade camera gear. Interestingly, these are also the things that I will not be getting rid of. Well, perhaps except the Star Wars DVD’s that I paid $19.99 for three years ago and sold on eBay for $95. What a wonderful accident?

Of all the crap I am getting rid of, my biggest regret is that I didn’t spend my money differently in the past. Instead of mortgage interest, whisks, pie serving knives, and drawer organizers, I wish I had spent the money on gasoline, tires, and photographs. Sure, I did that, too – it’s probably why I’m broke. But as I dump things by the wheel-barrow load that is not resellable, I realize that the American mode of having a little tool for every this-and-that is unnecessary.

I can make sushi on the tailgate of a pickup truck with a Swiss Army Knife, a Coleman camp stove, one pot, some wax paper, and a placemat. I don’t need hand mixers, waffle irons, four frying pans, six copper-bottomed pots, and three Pyrex mixing bowls. Nope. I don’t need much, at all. I don’t even remember the meals I made with all this valueless crap anymore. I don’t have pictures of the food I once made. And I certainly do not feel as though I have lost anything by going minimalist in the RV.

My old lifestyle looks wasteful. It looks like gobs of money out for things that lost their value moments after purchase. It looks like a life spent buying things out of social norm, domestic anxiety, and a lack of creativity to just make due with that I already had. There are things that hold value, but I will cling to those things with my last breath. My Makita ½” drill will be mine until the day it breaks. My truck will be with me until the last day of gasoline or until it throws a rod through the cylinder wall of the engine. My photographs and hard drives are the things I will take with me at the start of any apocalypse. My outdoor gear is my habit – I will care for it like it is the only barrier between me and death. These are the things I value; my tent, camera, time spent with friends and family, and the wheels that connect the dots.

I am no different from anyone else. I have stuff. I have too much stuff. But with this unique disjoint I chose to install in my life a couple years ago, I get to look back on myself through the eyes of someone different. I now feel that my RV is too much. All I want is a tent and an endless tank of gasoline. The things I have spent so much time and money on throughout my past now haunt and puzzle me. The only things that matter are the things that keep me safe, keep my creativity possible and flowing; that keep my things in good repair; that allow me to build new things, and that give me a pathway to experience and mobility that I live for. The rest of it is just dead weight. It is time to shed the dead weight and live better for the things that actually matter.

My generation is a waste of biomass, but one thing we are doing right is to seek experience over materialism. I can finally see that and I hope to live in a way that feels right from here on. The value of things lies in the ability of the thing to hold its value or to tremendously contribute regular utility to one’s life. The value of things, most importantly, is in where it takes you and the memories it allows you to make. Piles of junk are the antithesis of experience. 

One ship, one life, and less stuff

When all of your fictional heroes are wandering, womanless hobos who move from place to place in a modest ship they call home, a troublesome identity is born. You know the characters; the Han Solo, Malcolm Reynolds, and William Adama's of the fictional world. They're all just guys living in flying Winnebago's, living from job to job, and moving on when a place doesn't suit them anymore. 

When I started to free myself from the preposterous domestic life a couple years ago, I didn't realize the full mass of the beast I awakened. I felt as though I was tearing away the chains that I mistakenly locked myself in. What I didn't realize is that I wouldn't stop tearing away those chains. 

Today, I find myself wanting less and less. I no longer want heavy things, things with lots of bags, boxes, and subscriptions. I want simplicity, experience, and labor. I don't want additional tax paperwork and monthly costs of ownership. And I most certainly don't want baggage and expensive dinners for two. 

The thing is, some of these costs are important. It's great having a truck. But do I need a motorcycle and a car and an RV and a house, too? What if I actually only need the truck? 

It's a strange thought, but I feel like the chains started coming off and I just don't want to stop. My education completely fucked my brain to the point that the only thing I want to do is wander. I no longer want to have stuff. I want to live out my short life in creative spaces on my own terms, not instrumental spaces on someone else's terms. 

Stuff helps make memories, but there comes a point when stuff becomes such a weight that experiences take a backseat to stuff. 

I now look back and wonder how I got all this stuff? I wonder why I still have it? Then I wonder how to get rid of it? 

Strangely, all of the fictional characters I identify with aren't attached to many things, other than that which they depend on. I no longer feel the need to have stuff -- instead, I want to see, feel, experience, and think. Instead of things to take up space, I want space... just space. And the few things I need to experience and be in these spaces on my own terms. 

All I need is my one ship. And enough to keep it flying.

The Higher Education Bubble: The Reckoning

A reckoning is coming. The housing market crashed sometime in 2008, but the path to the crash was set in motion long before the actual crash happened. The overvaluation of homes, the ballooning of home loan debt, the borrowing of material things against imaginary home equity, and then the inability to pay those loans triggered the biggest depression since The Great Depression. The crash of the housing market led to negative effects on the job market, the price of gas skyrocketed, and the price of food even went up. But the housing market is back, the stock market is back, and the price of gas is under $3 per gallon. Life is good. Except that there is another bubble that has yet to burst and has yet to be realized. It soon will be.

The bubble that has yet to burst is what I call the “education bubble.” The education bubble is more pernicious than the housing bubble and more dynamic. This bubble isn’t just about student loan debt; it’s about the other problems that arise from an educated public that can’t find equivalent work. Student loan debt is a known problem – there are people getting useless humanities degrees and are leaving school with $50,000 or more in debt. That’s preposterous.

Student loan debt is certainly one major dimension of the education bubble. Not only is student loan debt a major debt source in the U.S., perhaps greater than any form of consumer credit, it is also the kind that sticks with you. Student loan debt can’t be eliminated through bankruptcy and most of us won’t have our loans paid by a trust fund or a rich uncle. The amounts that each individual is carrying in student loan debt for college is unsustainable. It is a burden that makes college not worth it. Students walking out with $20,000, $50,000, or even $100,000 for a four year degree in worthless topics, like Philosophy, English, or Environmental Studies is so wrong, it should be impossible to rack up such numbers.

It’s not that these degrees aren’t worthwhile – they make better people. But in making better people, do we really need to spend five digits to get there? Should better people be saddled with unsustainable amounts of debt? What is the purpose of making better people when they can’t get jobs that will pay enough to live in adequate housing, own an adequate car, eat food, and pay off their student debt? The average job for the non-engineer appears to be $28,000-$40,000 per year. That’s great, but at that wage, deduct almost 20% for taxes, then take another 10% for retirement and medical coverage. After student loan payments, rent, food, gas, and necessary entertainment, there's nothing left.

But the education bubble isn’t about student debt – that’s a known issue and one that will haunt my generation for many more years. The education bubble lies in the production of too many big brains and not enough places to put them. Sure, big brains are great in all positions – whether working on cars, engineering the next bridge, or even serving beer at the local pub. But for those who aren’t engineering the next bridge or technology, the jobs out there are hard to get and don’t pay well. There aren’t enough of these jobs to serve all of the English Literature, Environmental Studies, Evolutionary Biology, and Germanic Language degrees that are coming out of the institution.

Instead, we tell children and teens to “go to college so you can get a good job.” What’s a good job, anyway? Is it one where you make enough to pay back your student debt? Is it one that matches your degree and line of study? Or is it one that you could have gotten without going through all that schooling, anyway? I think a “good job” is one that matches one’s training in a degree path, or at least utilizes one’s critical thinking skills gained from a degree path. I think it’s a job that pays well enough to justify the educational investment. Which isn’t most of the jobs out there today.

The cost of education is effectively a business investment. It is the cost to buy in. And it is an opportunity cost. For $20,000, $50,000, or even $100,000, what else could be done to build better people and better lives? For those working retail jobs after college, jobs that do not require any college education, was the opportunity cost of college worthwhile? Or did it become a burden; a failed investment?

The reckoning is coming. The education bubble is upon us. There will be a backlash toward institutions and the promise of higher ed in the near future. Mark my idiotic words. The education bubble isn’t just about ballooning student loan debt; It’s about the psychological harm that comes from spending time and money on an education for the promise of a “good job,” only to find that there are too many well-educated and not enough “good jobs.” Or that the education being offered no longer fits the markets that graduates enter after school. The education bubble is the high cost and debt to potential income ratio that we all face upon graduation. And the education bubble is the over-production of big thinkers, leaders, and the lack of places to put them. It is the creation of too many queens and not enough soldiers. We need soldiers. Finally, it is the fundamentally twisted way in which we define what a “good job” is and the inequitable process it takes to get a good job – the way we determine someone’s value and earning ability by proximity, pedigree, and luck. We have created a new class; the educated poor. We are also creating entirely new forms of social justice issues in our education system that have yet to be realized.

Higher ed is headed for a reckoning. It is already here. And it is about to burst. Hold onto your butts.

Bad Advice

Everyone has advice to give. There are good decisions, bad decisions; ones we support and ones we don't. In the advice we all seem to offer, some offer advice with intensity and others with support. There is a distinct relationship between advice and support, which sometimes appears totally polarized, existing at opposite ends of some imaginary spectrum. The relationship between advice and supportiveness appears to stem from different places, but it mostly seems to come from centricities and limitations that we are all inevitably mired in. Most of all, advice carries power, impact, and plays a pivotal role in the relationship between the sender and receiver. Lately, I have had many realizations about advice, where it comes from, and the role it plays in relationships. 

One of the biggest realizations I have had about advice lately is that a lot of advice is based on someone's own fear of the world and consequences. But that fear is entirely relative. So are the consequences the person is trying to avert another person from. Those consequences are based on one person's experience, which is limited to that person and their experiences. Some of these consequences happen time and again, but sometimes they don't.

If you watch thirty people try to do the high-jump in gym class, 10 might hit the bar, 2 might not even try, 5 might clear it with ease, and another 10 might have to work really hard to just barely clear the bar. If everyone in the gym class watched the 2 who didn't even try and took their advice, the entire gym class wouldn't even attempt the high-jump. What good would that advice be in the real world?

The presence of uninformed advice is another major realization. Advice that comes before the person has asked or even tried to figure out the other person's plan is inherently uninformed. Even worse, when the adviser is not giving advice based upon the skillset of the recipient -- the advice comes from the vantage point of one's own experience and skillset only. This kind of advice doesn't account for the fact that someone may be considering other options out of necessity or skills that may allow one to pull something new and different off. Just because you couldn't or didn't choose a different path, does that really mean that nobody else can do it either? Some people can start companies and become very successful. Others are better taking safer routes.

The intensity of advice seems to be distinctly related to a person's fear and their belief that you should act in the way they want you to. I remember when I moved into the RV; I had those who thought I lost my mind and were vehemently against it and those who, instead of venturing their opinion on my sanity or rightness, chuckled and told me stories of people they knew who did that and their experiences with RV's. Whose advice was relevant here? Those who were vehemently against it and thought I lost my mind, or those who were supportive and recognized my agency in the decision?

Those who are supportive appear to recognize the agency, skill, and variability of one's path, whereas those who loudly offer advice appear to want to strip the person of their own decisions. The relationship between advice and support appears to be polarized in some cases, but not others. Support seems to come from a kind of advice that recognizes another person's agency, whereas advice given with intensity appears to ignore a person's own reasons for taking the actions they take and the plans they make. When I moved into the RV, those giving intense advice or unsupportive comments ended up being really wrong -- and they wronged me. Those who were supportive were emotionally right and left me without distrust of their judgment.

When I make decisions, I do it because I have good reason to do so. When someone blindly comes at me swinging with advice that is both unsolicited and intense, I now just wonder why that person decided that I should fit their mold for how to live and what actions to take?

I am really skeptical of giving advice anymore. I have met enough people and had enough experiences to know that everyone has a different path, even if only slightly. Some like to sit at home. Others like to go running. Some like to drink at bars and others like to not drink at all. Some like to live in houses -- others in teepees -- and yet others in RV's. Some even like to live in different places at different times of years. Some like to go camping and others hate it. Can any of these people ever offer relevant advice to the other? Do people who drink in bars also always live in teepees or live in the same place the entire year? No, because we all make slightly different choices.

Anymore, instead of giving advice or beginning any conversation with the belief that I am right, I just offer my experiences and expertise to help someone with a decision they've made. Telling someone the wrongness of their decision or the consequences they will uncertainly encounter or inserting my own fear into their life choices just... hurts my relationship with that person. If someone wants to go skydiving, I personally don't care to make that choice, but if the person has made the decision to do so, I can only say, "That sounds intense! What made you interested in skydiving? Are you going to take a helmet cam? If so, send me the video link when you're done. Oh, and be sure to skydive with an experienced teacher, okay?"

The distance between advice and supportiveness can  be lightyears apart. Advice appears to come from a place of limited personal experience, the rules we have made for the world based on our own limited experiences, and perhaps fear. Supportiveness appears to come from a place of understanding someone's agency over their own life and the intrigue that comes with seeing how other people might choose to live. I do not operate on fear anymore, so when someone tries to instill fear into me about one of my coming decisions, I now only wonder if the person believes fear is anything but a mechanism for control?

The things I have been taught to fear aren't scary. Risk isn't that scary. Living differently from others isn't that scary. And making my own choices, even if costly are really only that -- costly. But the costs come in the form of my own lessons and a respect for those who are making their own path through these costly lessons. If a lesson is learned at the hand of oneself, the lesson is their own. If a lesson is learned through the fear and command of others, it is a shelter and a loss of real wisdom and knowledge.

I am no longer scared of my decisions. But I am scared for those who believe their advice and injection of fear and doubt into the psyche of another is relevant, fair, or reasonable. If you tell a student that they are going to fall, they're probably going to fall. If you tell someone they can't, they probably can't. If you tell a friend that they shouldn't go camping because a bear might eat them, they will be fearful for their entire camping experience and will soon hate camping.

Instead... Tell the friend that bears tend to bother people who smell like food and buy them a can of bear spray and teach them how to use it. Tell the student that if they take a few extra minutes in the evening to study, that they certainly can. Tell the friend that you have never skydived, but you can't wait to hear what they thought of it. Then, consider that you may be scared, but the other person isn't. That's the difference between advice and support.

My new advice is: Live life the way you want to live. Follow the river you are unavoidably embedded in. Appreciate your own experiences and the different experiences those around you will have. Live through others to enrich yourself. People will stumble, fall, and may need help getting back up -- Instead of pushing them back down for making a decision that put them on the ground in the first place, help them back up... even if it was their "fault."

A Major Fault in My Work Ethic

I recently realized that I have a major work ethic problem. It's one that no one knows, except me, and maybe a select few nearest to my more raw thought processes. And now anyone reading this. The flaw is that my performance directly correlates with what I am getting paid. That's a major problem.

What it means is that when I get paid $15 per hour, I give you $15 per hour worth of work. It means I tailor my efforts, the skills I offer, and the percentage of my skillset that I offer as part of my work day. At $15 per hour, you get the guy who can basically write a sentence or two, will be there physically when needed, and will offer generally friendly service when prompted.

At $15 per hour, what you do not get is the guy who comes up with new ideas for new projects, researches new approaches to problems, polishes all correspondence to a professional grade, maybe seeks funding, fixes anything from computer-based problems to human interaction problems in a workplace. You don't get the photographer, the researcher, or the guy who gives a flying shit about your lackluster organization's mission. You get Me Lite.

And there's a reason I do this. I have a huge range of skills. I have nearly four college degrees, including advanced research and writing work at the master's level. I can edit, write, research, tackle technical problems, and be the polished social face of your organization. If you're going to pay me a retail wage, you just bought a Corvette, but didn't keep enough money for gas and insurance. Congratulations, the Corvette you just bought is now a garage ornament. Whoopsies. Guess you should have bought a used Corolla and put gas in it instead, huh?

My bad attitude is real. And it exists for a reason: I didn't just spend the years of my life from Preschool through a dual-master's degree and ten years of professional experience to make retail wages. 25 years of my life in school for sub-restaurant wages. Do the math.

On the bright side, when someone pays a wage compensatory with my skills and investment, I give them the keys to the tool shed. I'll be your PR face, your troubleshooter, your think-tank, AND your grant writer. I'll work for you and I will work hard. I will even work more hours than I am contracted and I will do it with a f##king smile. I'll even drink coffee and offer you turbo-mode and the guy who can plan for the future and fill in for you when you take vacation.

Am I a sell out for having this bad attitude problem? You bet. I didn't spend 25 years in school because I thought it would be a good idea to make peanut wages and offer all those skills that I just wasted all those years practicing so I could get a "good job." By the way, a "good job" is one that pays enough to own an average house and a modest, yet brand-new car. By the way squared; That's not $15 per hour. And by the way cubed; $15 per hour is not enough to live in a shitty apartment anymore.

So, the moral of the story here is that I do have a bad attitude. I am entitled. And I have a major fault in my work ethic. You can buy me for just about any price, but you're going to get a tailored skillset with varying pay levels. If you can afford the Corvette, but not the insurance or gas, you just bought a Corvette that will sit in the garage and look pretty. If you can afford the gas and insurance, too, you just got the rock star that is going to make your mission sing.

You might be wondering what I actually think I'm worth? How can I quantify that? Here's how: I spent over 6 years in college, more like 7 if you consider all the classes I took between undergrad and grad. I worked my ass off for my degrees and gained professional experience all along the way. What am I worth? I'm worth the total amount that my degrees cost as an annual income every year and I am worth an above average income as an above-average-educated individual. Sorry. It sucks, but it's just how I work. I would rather be homeless than work for some donkey dick who undervalues their employees. There can be no altruism in the work life.

So, just like software, I come in Lite, Professional, and Ultimate editions -- and you can opt for which version of me you get. Interestingly, my highest level isn't even expensive -- it's just a reasonable, middle-class wage.

The Real Cost of Grad School - $88,000

It's funny. If you go get an education and work hard, you'll make it. That's what the people on Fox News say. If it weren't for all those lazy, uneducated people just wanting hand-outs, America's economy would be in better shape and we wouldn't need welfare. I mean, the answer to solving the welfare problem in this country is education and hard work, right? Right. 

I sat down and calculated how much graduate school cost me recently. I went and got more education so I could be a better and harder worker, which I knew would come with some kind of investment cost. As a fully funded student who got paid to attend school, I thought I was doing something potentially great. I sought a dual master's degree, so I could become a rounded thinker and a more complete contributor to my field. Surely, with education and hard work, I would be worth at least as much as I was before I got my graduate degree.

When calculating how much graduate school cost me, I have to consider foregone wages for the entire duration from the day I quit my job to this day -- the day that I am employed again in my same field (I didn't switch). When I consider the amount I was making the day I left my job, I forewent just over $148,000 in wages. While in graduate school, I earned $32,000 over the entire period. In total, I forewent a net $116,400 in wages to attend graduate school. Graduate school cost me $116,400 in missed wages.

Then, I have to consider my changes in living expenses. Before going to grad school, I was spending about $18,000 per year to live in a suburban luxury townhome by my lonesome. That's a lot of money. So, I moved into an RV. In the RV, I paid rent, utilities, and for a storage unit. My living costs went from $18,000 per year to $7,700 per year. By moving from a luxury townhome to an RV, I saved roughly $10,260 per year. Over the ~2.8 year period, I saved roughly $28,700 in living costs. That feels good.

Regrettably, I also have to consider what grad school did for me in the way of market value. So far, it looks like my market value has fallen by a solid 40% from my value before I attended graduate school. Keeping in mind that I am not starting my career over and have instead built upon my worth, it sure seems fishy that I seem to now be worth 40% less than I was when I had a bachelor's degree. So, graduate school cost me 40% of my market value for an indefinite and unforeseeable period. 40% loss for more education in the same field. Yikes.

It appears that my net cost for graduate school was about $88,600 considering foregone wages and changes in living costs. But the tally doesn't stop there -- my choice to go to graduate school will now cost me 40% of every hour of every day I go to work until I rebuild my career to where it was before. Which may not be possible.

So, was graduate school worth it? I used to think so. Sometimes I think so. But when I see these numbers and my state of economy and employment, I'm afraid my answer is: Absolutely not. If I knew what I know now, I would have done things very differently. I wouldn't have attended graduate school. Instead, I would have continued with the RV plan, though perhaps my more minimal van plan, and I would have continued working my old job. I would have kept my wages, paid off my student loans that I already had, and I would have saved enough money to take off and roam for years.

It is difficult to account for all of this since hindsight is so easy to distort and see. But was graduate school worth two years of my life, $88,000 in foregone wages, and a 40% reduction of my market value? The answer is a resounding HELL NO. The myth of more education increasing market value drove me to seek more schooling and it was money poorly spent. I could have executed my van plan, paid off all my debt, and saved enough to road trip for years had I just stayed with my old job.

The analysis is preposterous, but I think it's incredibly sad to look at how much of a waste graduate school was, professionally and financially. Personally, I enjoyed it thoroughly -- it was probably one of the best experiences of my life -- but maybe there was another way to have a great experience than to go work my ass off to get more education, only to run myself bankrupt? Maybe I should have just saved my money and taken off on a multi-year road trip instead? Maybe I should have packed a backpack and headed to South America, New Zealand, and Asia instead? How much traveling and time could I have had with $88,000 worth of foregone wages? 

The answer is troubling. I could have done so much. Instead, I worked to find intellectual fulfillment through an instrumental pathway. The institution is an instrumental pathway and I wish I had chosen to travel and read books instead.

Someday, I will follow up with this. I could find a better job tomorrow. But I could also become a shoe salesman. The future is uncertain. But the past is a lesson.