Quit Spending Free Time – Try Cashing It In

I have had a lot of professional experiences. As I reflect back on twenty years’ worth of work, my resumes and the various industry-specific iterations of them, my memories reveal flower truck driving, lifeguarding, retail printing, teaching, event planning, and instructional design. These are to name a small handful of roles from the classic Millennial Cagefight between Survival and Meaningmaking. My story resembles the townie character, Kirk, in “Gilmore Girls” who was doing something new in each episode and announcing it gleefully in the square.

My career trajectory has been unconventional. Or, rather, it has not been linear. I am currently working in instructional design and academic technology, which is a career track I discovered accidentally after having decided to move to Kentucky to pursue an IT job that I could leverage to gain access to work in higher education. It turns out that there are jobs—a lot of them—at the intersection of technology and learning. And what are Millennials, or Zennials, up to more than those two things?

I am also currently pursuing a graduate degree in counseling: the psychological kind. Although it may not be clearly tied to what I do to make my living, I would argue that learning how to ponder how others think, react, and live in the world is an unmatched educational background for any industry, including or especially my own.

But my current education gives me more than that. Each of us has an extra 3 hours in the week leftover during which we are probably otherwise spent on a streaming service, but I plan to do therapy instead. It will not come with a hardware discount, but It pays better than Home Depot and I will be able to give back to the community at the same time. I have stayed committed to my own intellectual curiosities and personal investment in civic engagement, because whether we are new to Pittsburgh or a fifth generation Yinzer (like me), some of our most valuable personal friendships, cherished memories, and professional networks actually come from connecting with others through the things that we love most, not from our badly lit offices (Seriously. What’s with that?) and ticketed champagne-and-desperation handshake bingo.

Many of the jobs I have thought mattered, or would, did not in hindsight. They turned out to be more important in that they taught me about workplace cultures and politics. I learned key differences between non-profit and for-profit organizations. My journey ultimately taught me that somewhere along the way (unless we are extremely privileged) we need to choose how to align and stuff all of our interests into one of three metaphorical buckets:

• What a job title is or job is named.
• What work we are happy or comfortable doing.
• How much money we want or need to make to meet all of the many other tastes we develop over the course of our lifetimes.

However, my advice is to choose something else, too, and make a new friend on purpose while you are there.

There is a great deal of research into a reality that volunteering is good for us. So, if you cannot find the right full-time job that makes you want to dance about it, then look for something part-time. And if you do not need that money, use your “Streaming Time” to volunteer with an organization that matters to you. These commitments have literal positive mental and physical health outcomes. Simply speculating, I would bet that is because it makes us feel good, and feeling good makes us all a little bit better. That is the real purpose of organizations like PYP: Not entries into business card drawer that we will get around to sorting “someday”, but to provide opportunities for people with similar interests to make authentic, intentional, and meaningful relationships.

Authored by Ben Stoviak, instructional designer, blogger, and current graduate student.filed under: Press Release

Tags: pyp, quit spending free time, streaming time, try cashing it in