They don’t tell you how much of an impact work has on your life and overall happiness until you graduate, get a job, and start living your life outside of college. Up until about four weeks ago I considered myself lucky enough. I had a good job, decent benefits, and worked with some pretty great people who were genuinely interested in my personal growth and development. But, as Carrie Bradshaw once wrote, there was no Zsa Zsa Zu. I wasn’t in love with what I was doing 8 hours a day, every day. That’s 40 hours a week, every week, for almost two whole years.

A link in my chain was broken and it was throwing me off. Scratch that, I was letting it. For the first four months I sulked. I only had one offer coming out of college and it was only an internship at a company I was particularly fond of and oh yeah, my Dad got me in. Needless to say I wasn’t exactly thrilled and it really showed.

After graduation I moved back home like so many of my peers. I sat for two months waiting for all of the applications I filled to somehow pan out. I worked hard enough in college. I deserved a fighting chance for every job I applied for, or so I thought. This was my first real life lesson, you don’t always get what you want when you want it. But anyone who knows me, knows that I reject that. I’m in the business of having my cake and eating it too. And if there’s no cake I make up for it with a whole tub of frosting…but that’s a topic for another post. Getting back to the point, like most people I take great pleasure in my stars aligning and ultimately, in getting exactly what I want.

And so began the journey.

Not to be overly dramatic but, I consider those first few months post-grad some of my darkest days. I sloughed around. I wasn’t performing my best work. And what’s worse is that I really didn’t care. My thought process was, ok I will put my time in but, just long enough to where it wouldn’t look weird if I left. You never want to be the person that bounces around from job to job. So I was paying my dues. What’s bad about this mentality is that it is so toxic. It starts as a fleeting thought, then a daily reminder, and then before you know it, it consumes you. The power of positive thinking is real. So is the power of negative thinking. And again, another real life lesson.

What happened next was pure luck. The company went through a corporate restructure a few months after I was hired and I was moved from one division to another. I was happy. Maybe this new role would be more exciting, more fulfilling. But, it wasn’t appropriate for me to express any kind of joy because in the wake of this positive change for me was a 30% layoff of my coworkers. After watching my Dad over the years struggle in coming to terms with having to lay-off his guys and deciphering whether or not he would be laid off himself, I knew this was a horrible situation. It was supremely uncomfortable. What was a good day for me was one of the worst for many of my coworkers. This wasn’t the kind of company I wanted to be at; a company with stagnant or almost stagnant growth and a strong fiscal responsibility to shareholders resulting in an annual need to reduce overhead. Bleak stuff. I had already made it through two layoff cycles in my first 18 months. It was another tally mark on the list of things I didn’t like in my life. One of which was my living situation.

It’s hard going from living away from home for 4 years, with the exception of summer vacation, and then going back to the same room you grew up in. The same parents you’ve always had. The same familiarity of driving around town. But, feeling different yourself. Going back home was like going backwards. I just took four leaps forward and now it was like I was going two steps back. I acted like a child. And I threw a lot of blame around.

It’s my job. It’s my living situation. It’s my parents and my friends and I have no control and nothing is going the way it should be going and I’m angry. So blindly angry. I was the worst version of myself for too many days. The struggle was real and it was not going away.

So I moved out. Thinking that this would make things better. And it did for a time. I was taking back my independence. I would live alone and I would love it. And guess what, I did and still do.

But, if things were going to really change I needed to turn that finger around and point at myself. In the end, I was to blame. I was raised on the fact that you create your own destiny. Nobody is going to do it for you. The harder you work the luckier you get.

So with the new change at work came a newfound hope for what life could be like at this company. Things started to turn around even though the work still didn’t inspire me. I came to the conclusion, albeit a bit late in the game, that I would make the best of this situation. I would take advantage of every opportunity thrown my way. I would immerse myself in the corporate culture. I would find mentors and I would learn. I would choose happiness.

That didn’t last long.

Despite my best efforts to stay busy, to learn new skills, and to find direction, I was still supremely unhappy. My Dad confronted me one day. In essence he said, well what if it’s not the job? You want to make all of these changes but what if in the end it’s not the job, it’s not the living situation, it’s you. That was very hard for me to hear. In some ways he was right. But in others he was just wrong.

The work I was doing just didn’t inspire me. Well, so what, you might be saying. I had a job lined up two months post grad. I had my own apartment and a great dog and I had dinner parties and my friends moved back home and yet I still wasn’t happy. Don’t get me wrong I had my happy moments. I went on two business trips and got to see Silicon Valley. I did have wonderful parties. I had good friends and great family…

But I wanted to be inspired. I needed to be inspired. I had become an engineer for three main reasons. I’ve been afforded a certain kind of lifestyle that I always intend on having. I never wanted to be out of a job and for the most part engineers are always in demand. And last but not least I wanted to help people. Not only help people but, see my direct impact on people. Gonzaga set that fire in me. So naturally I blame the school, faculty, and students…They instilled in me the desire to be inspired. The slogan that papered the halls, streets, and faces of my peers echoed in my head. Be inspired.

I had almost everything I wanted. Almost. My own place. My own dog. No boyfriend but let’s be real, I’m a strong, independent woman who don’t need no man. And that certainly wasn’t the road block between me and my happiness.

It was the job. It had to be. If it wasn’t I was in deep shit. If it wasn’t, I thought, I would start having some serious problems.

So I hit the pavement, hard. I nurtured my professional relationships all the while. I stayed in touch with all the right people. I was determined to get back to what inspired me. And it just so happened that I found my inspiration in an internship I had the summer before my senior year.

Looking back, I was my happiest that summer. For the first time in my life I fell in love. Deeply and madly in love. I was in a serious relationship with my job. I learned so much. I got to experience so many incredible things. My job introduced me to people who were helping other people. To aid the afflicted through the ingenuity of our minds, the labor of our hands and the compassion of our hearts. That was the mantra. I ate it up like the sweet piece of cake it was. And by the end of that summer I was still hungry for more, which is often the case when dealing with cake, at least for me. Again, that’s a topic for another post.

I was determined to get back to that company. I would be happy there. I just knew it. So I applied for every position I felt qualified for. I played the long game. And finally I landed a six hour interview…but I didn’t get the job.

And then came some more very dark days. My dear, loving grandmother died tragically. This was my first adult experience with grief. It consumed me. But as is the theme of my 24 years on this earth, just when things seem like they couldn’t get any worse all of a sudden they take a sharp upward trajectory. A day or two following her death I received a recruitment email from the company asking me to interview again but for a different position. I scheduled the interview for the day after I got back from burying my grandmother. Seriously poor planning on my part which resulted in my worst interview yet. I did terrible. I stuttered. I was nervous. I was not at all prepared.

My cousin sent me a comforting text afterwards: “Maybe they just figured you were one of those crazy geniuses who has trouble communicating with others because their brain operates at an incomprehensible level.” HAHA yeah right, I thought.

But then I got another email. HR and the engineering supervisor wanted to speak to me. Oh god, I thought, I did so bad they want to give me advice on how to do better the next time. How embarrassing, my face turning beet red at the thought.

What happened next was a little something I like to call fate. I was destined to work for this company again. I knew it all along, it was just a matter of when. A few moving parts and a few phone calls landed me right where I always wanted to be; in the position I always wanted to be in at the company I always wanted to work for. The universe finally worked its magic and here we are now. I’ve truly never been happier. The moral of this long, drawn out story is in the power of hindsight.

This life is but one big jigsaw puzzle. Some pieces you get from home, your parents, your siblings, your foundation. Corner pieces one might say. The easy ones to find. Some pieces come from others, your friends, your peers, teachers, mentors, etc.. They get added to the edges and start to make sense of the picture. But, as I have found, it is the pieces you find yourself that are the most rewarding. The ones you smash into the wrong place again and again until it fits as it should. Those tricky middle pieces.

Sometimes, just when you really start to see the picture (which for me was after graduation), your puzzle gets pushed halfway off the table and you end up back at square one. Picking up the corner pieces. Putting them back together from the outside in. But it’s not about how many times you have to start your puzzle over again. It’s about how you put it together, time after time. Fall seven stand eight. Never give up. Never surrender. Especially to those dark days. Believe that you will get that damn cake and you sure as hell will eat it too.