So here I am, 11 weeks into this little social experiment – this pursuit of the “rad life” as I deemed it on day one.

80 days in and I suppose if I had to really Coles Notes the whole experience, I’d opt for describing it as, “startlingly positive.”

I’ve finally been able to begin this little passion project of a blog of mine, and through doing so, I’ve realized that maybe there is still a little creative energy left swirling somewhere in the deep abyss of my mind. Somewhere, below grocery lists and appointments, hidden under layers of small talk and daily articulations on the weather, there still exists some small part of me that can have a semi-original thought.

That is, as long as I’m not hungover, overly tired or under-caffeinated, the air isn’t too humid or too dry, there’s a crescent moon AND I have uninhibited access to a 90’s slowjam playlist. But give me some Boyz II Men and a latte and the creative juices are a flowin’!

I have also experienced the support of old acquaintances, friends and well-meaning strangers set on letting me know that I am not alone in eternal feelings of discontent. I now know for sure what I have always suspected: that we are a world of hunters and wanderers and that very few of us really have anything figured out.

Sure we like to give the appearance of knowing what we’re doing; we have entire social media outlets dedicated to giving the impression that we are #flawless. Photos and posts and tweets, filtered and edited and carefully timed to tell the outside world, “Hey look at me, I’m on a beach, life is so blissful and easy” or, “Look over here at this new car I just bought, it’s so shiny and exciting, just like my life” and most often, “Check out this nauseatingly cute photo of me and my boyfriend/girlfriend/life partner that makes it look like we never fight and have sex eight times a day.”

Yet dig just a little under the surface, get rid of a little bit of the Valencia sheen and you’re left with a world of beautiful messes, all secretly waiting for someone else to exclaim “Me! Here! Look! I’m a disaster too!”

I’ve received a multitude of messages from other people who feel like their quicksanding through their careers, all with the common theme of, “Thank God I’m not the only one who’s considered hurling themselves down a flight of stairs to avoid going to work.”

On any given day I teeter somewhere between the two worlds. Some days I wake up just reveling in the messiness of it all. There are days I absolutely believe that if tomorrow, someone handed me my perfect career on a silver platter and I was left holding a tray complete with a great relationship AND was financially stable AND had a job I skipped to in the morning, that I would probably just crumble and self-destruct in its perfection.

It’s like the old saying goes: “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for life; give a man free-roaming access to all the fish in the world and all he’ll want is a steak.”

We’re not supposed to get everything we want all at once. It’s too easy; too boring. If it’s one thing we can all learn from women’s attraction to bad boys or men’s pursuit of aloof women it’s that we all love a challenge; if it comes to easily it’s probably not worth it and we probably won’t fight to keep it.

But then there’s days, waking up after a long night shift working in a bar, puffy-eyed and horse-voiced from 10-hours of small talk, that the idea of normalcy seems fairly ideal. At 30, my body isn’t cut out for walking on concrete floors in heels anymore. I don’t have the same patience for people I once did, and expending all my energy outward to strangers on a daily basis has meant I have had less energy to expend on the people in my life that actually matter.

In the last couple of weeks, the overall throbbing in my knees has left me leaning once again toward life outside the restaurant industry.

So although I haven’t written a blog entry in over three weeks, I have been writing. I’ve been writing all kinds: Cover letters and making minute edits to my resume in hopes of tailoring it to the specifications of a particular job. I’ve been spending entire afternoons trying to work “key words” into job applications in hopes of tricking the computer program that is filtering out resumes before actual humans even see them.

And I will tell you one thing: Job-hunting has to be one of life’s most horribly disenchanting experiences.

I loathe it.

I believe LinkedIn was a website created by soulless robots with the goal of making you seem horribly inadequate in all facets of life.

Job requirements in postings are akin to the dating profile of a high-maintenance girl with unrealistic expectations. The girl who wants a neurosurgeon with a 6-pack who can play guitar, who owns a Maserati and nurses abandoned three-legged kittens back to health between brain surgeries.

All job listings read like this to me: Oh for that entry level associate job you want 10-years prior experience, a Masters in sign-language, the ability to type 120 words per minute while in a handstand position, a proficiency in horse-whispering and an in-depth knowledge of the sport of cricket? No problem!

You’d like me to work 14 hour days fueled on a single banana, read Good Night Moon to clients in a David Attenborough accent, breathe my soul into a mason jar and store it on my desk every day, and give you my first born child to use as adorable office décor? Of course! Oh and you’d like me to do all that AND only pay me $45,000 a year? Why wouldn’t I? Who needs basic human sustenance like clothing and shelter? I’m just happy to be part of the team!

It looks like my uncanny road trip playlist-making abilities and unlimited supply of sarcastic zingers aren’t going to get me as far in life as I would have liked.

Listen, if we’re applying for a job in anything but computer programming, we’re all going to claim to have excellent communication skills and a completely made-up proficiency in Excel. Having worked in the 9 – 5 job market for a couple of years, these are not the things that get you through the daily trials and tribulations of office life. You can Google how to use Excel but you can’t Google how to survive spending eight hours a day shoved into a room with people who may rank close to zero on the likability scale. Is there a class somewhere on how to hold your tongue when every neuron in your body is itching to tell your boss he’s full of shit? Because THAT my friends, is an actual skill.

So if I had the opportunity to write my resume filled in with the qualities of mine I think are ACTUALLY important to career maintenance, it would look like this:

SUMMARY OF QUALIFICATIONS

• Proficient in media monitoring; can provide a detailed daily summary of all recently posted BuzzFeed articles and most hilarious video clips.

• Up-to-date knowledge of important current events including in-depth expertise on recent male celebrity beards and female celebrities in bikinis.

• A highly motivated self-starter provided there is an unlimited supply of caffeinated beverages within a 5-minute walk of the office.

• On a related note, will literally lick the face of anyone who brings me coffee in the morning, i.e. skilled at cultivating relationships with other staff members.

• Excellent aptitude for elevator small talk.

• Ability to stay neutral in all office-related relationship drama; has in the past been referred to as the “Switzerland” of the office environment.

• Talented at getting the perfect amount of tipsy at work-related functions; has never been referred to as “THAT girl.”

• Gifted at making grammar and punctuation my bitch on a regular basis.

• Places great importance on elevating the self-esteem of my work colleagues. My horse-like laugh often accompanied by snorting makes those around me feel better for not sharing these qualities.

• Has a very genuine looking fake smile and therefore capable of making even the most antagonistic and sociopathic clients feel liked and appreciated.

• Multi-tasker who can simultaneously read, write, and pretend to care about your child’s birthday party/baby’s first tooth/that dog wedding you attended over the weekend

• Excellent writing skills; highly gifted at responding to texts from your potential dates/boyfriends/girlfriends when you are stuck for ideas or in serious trouble.

• A team player that places great value on the happiness of others; can offer many pieces of poignant advice to staff that are unknowingly just quotes of Taylor Swift lyrics (e.g. “Shake it off”; “Don’t be afraid, we’ll make it out of this mess”; “I’ve found that time can heal most anything. And you just might just who you’re supposed to be.”)

• A superior sense of direction. You want a midday burrito? I definitely do too and know where to find the closest one.

Point is, a lot of the most talented, humorous, enjoyable people I know aren’t the ones that look that necessarily look that great on paper. It’s hard to slip in pieces of your personality between your experiences with Photoshop and how much you love spreadsheets.

Sending your resume out over LinkedIn or on a third-party job posting site often feels like throwing the garbage down my condo’s chute. Who sees it? Did I even throw it down the right chute? Does anyone REALLY know where it’s going? I picture the receiving end just being some R2-D2 type robot that scans my resume and then lights it on fire for overuse of semicolons or not employing the proper subset of Helvetica.

I learned about a month into my last job that whole, “It’s not what you know it’s who you know” isn’t just some toss away proverb; it’s how this city functions.

So on that note, if you know someone, let’s get them trapped in an elevator with just me, a Tassimo machine and a copy of Good Night Moon and get this girl a career!

Hunt on my little messed-up wanderers.

E.