How do you know?

Not referencing the great musical number from "Enchanted." No, I'm talking more about jobs and what the future holds, mostly because in about a week I'll be unemployed for an unknown amount of time.

Here's the question I keep getting asked: what do you want to do? I understand that I should have some idea of what I want to do, but in all honesty, I don't. I'm apparently not like the rest of the world because I have no idea what I specifically want to do. I haven't narrowed it down at all. In fact, if I had my choice, I'd do a bunch of things over the course of my lifetime. These would include: event planning, the training and hiring field of human resources, logistics, singer, wedding planner, bookstore, bakery, dog walking, interior design, music industry, hotel/travel industry, editing, advising. Clearly I have no idea what I want to do because I want to do it all!

Why do we have to make up our mind now about what we want to do for the rest of our lives? Can't I be like the Europeans who only work to live? They do what they do to support themselves, or at least that's the mentality. That's why they take siestas at 3:00 every day for hours on end and are up at all hours. They live a carefree lifestyle that keeps their stress level down and their general outlook on life up. I would move to Europe in a heartbeat, by the way. Find me a Scotsman and settle down. That'd be grand.

Back to the point. I have too many areas I want to be able to concentrate in that I don't know what I really want to do. I don't think I could choose just one. And, yes, I have a Bachelor's degree, but all that's good for these days is what I'm doing right now: office work. And I enjoy office work. It's not stressful, I get little projects to work on and keep me busy, people leave me alone to do my thing, I get to socialize with the rest of the people in the area and get to know them. I don't know if I want to be forced into getting a higher degree just so I can do something that's slightly more complex. For example, advising. I'm good at it. I've been doing it for years but didn't know there was a name for it until I spent the last two years practicing it as an AHD. I know I'm good at it, and yet I have to have a Masters in it in order to get this really perfect-for-me job. What happened to the good old days when experience mattered in addition to education?

Now I spend my days updating my resume and looking for jobs. I joined a site that filters those without the correct experience out of the job pool, and that leaves me with six options according to my skills I've listed on the website. I looked on the state website that uses this filtering system and found at least 10 I'd be good at and want to apply for, but only one of them is also on the list of the original six. That's a flaw - what about matching skills over experience. Skills are transferable, people! I'm a totally viable candidate for most of the positions up there that require a pleasant phone voice, friendly personality, and common sense, but according to this matching website I can only be considered for six. Ridiculous.

When will we be able to do what we're good at and not worry that our experience also matches? Are we forever stuck in the path we started on? What if I want to stray off into another direction? I do that everyday and I know I'm going to do that when it comes to my job path. Side note: I keep adding things to the list of fields I'd love to work in. I can't stop. Here's another: crochet blankets and sell them online. I'm going to go wash up and get ready for bed - I get too depressed when it comes to job applications.