Of wisdom and fortune

I know it's well over 2 weeks into 2012 already, but Happy New Year everyone! I also know I promised a new blog a while ago, and here it finally is. It's been well over two months since my last proper blog, and plenty has happened in that time. I turned 25. I won one bet and lost another. Magnum swapping ensued and another bet was made :) I spent a fun day in Amsterdam with my friend Kim and her friend Emily, shopping, buying stroopwafels, tasting cheeses and visiting the oldest sex museum. The latter was interesting to say the least... I celebrated Sinterklaas and Christmas with my fam, New Years too. I visited the office of 'waarbenjij.nu' where they work on this very website, and got a sneak-peek of what my blog will look like in just a few months once the new website is up and running. I roadtripped down to the south of Holland with my roomies for a day, where I discovered I had a hidden talent for lasertag and I subsequently acquired a new nickname (which I won't repeat here, as it is haunting me eversince already, haha) I've surprised my housemates by getting out my inner 90s alternative rock chick for old times' sake at a 90s party. They had never seen me headbang before, haha :) I finally finished my America photo album, I've read 3 books and watched 154 episodes of House.

Writing it all down like that, it might seem like I've done quite a bit. It's partly given in by the fact I've had too much time on my hands though. I still haven't found a job, the one thing I really hoped I would have in the past two months. I'm writing cover letters and get just as many rejection letters back. Job agencies all tell me I need more experience, even for the lower level admin jobs, yet no one seems to be willing to give me a chance to get that experience. The economic climate is crappy for newly graduated people with little work experience like me, and it's frustrating. So very frustrating.

For my graduation, one of my dear friends gave me a book of Wisdom. The book holds quotes and life-stories of fifty well-known over-sixty-five-year-olds from all over the world. What they learned from life and how they look at the world and their place in it. She figured I could perhaps use the wisdom of the older generation in my search for what was next in my life. It is an awesome book :) And if there's one thing I gleened from all of the stories in that book, it's that failure is just as important - if not more - as success. It makes you reassess what's important to you and what inspires you, and it lets you discover your own strength.

Another dear friend of mine gave me fortune cookies for my graduation. It wasn't an entirely serious present, but the message he wanted to get across with it was. He knows I've been struggling with the big 'what's next' question, so he wished me lots of fortune in finding a fulfilling job and figuring out my life with this transition towards the working world. (I'm paraphrasing here :)) Now the fortune cookies themselves didn't tell me much. They all had generic messages like 'It's not too late to travel the world' and 'Destiny has something for you soon'. I didn't think that at 25 it would be too late to travel the world anyway, and destiny - if such a thing even exists - must always have SOMETHING in store for you by default. The idea of fortune though, combined with the stories of wisdom, did tell me something. It tells me that if you have the wisdom to know that failure is an inevitable and necessary part of life, and the fortune to be able to find the strength within you to pick yourself up and dust yourself off every time you do fail, you'll find your way in life one way or the other.

So here I am, trying to keep that wisdom in mind and adhering to that strength within myself I know I have while I keep failing to find a job. Sometimes it's hard to keep the faith though. Sometimes it's just an 'I-need-a-hug' kind of week...
xC.