On Finding Unexpected Clarity

Here’s a super quick summary of my last year for a bit of context: Completed the most indescribable arts degree. Spent the summer applying for jobs and volunteering for projects around Calgary, trying to figure out what to do with my life. Decided to “courageously commit” to an organization I already loved. With help from friends, convinced the organization to hire me as a Communications Intern and moved to Toronto. This work resulted in lots of compliments, but no job. And that’s how a small-town Albertan ended up unemployed in Toronto…

I suspect that everyone who gets a degree without a straightforward label struggles to figure out what to do with their life post-graduation. Ever since I realized that I did not want to sacrifice my youth to become an architect, I’ve been trying to find another career that would fill me with the same passion without architecture’s “sleep is for the weak” culture. However, the months of cumulative informational interviews, research, and testing out ideas have led to one inevitable conclusion: my soul refuses to accept the confines of the cookie-cutter jobs available to me. If only I could be a Designer-Entrepreneur-Storyteller-Community Builder-Artist-Adventurer!

Amazingly, a friend forwarded me an application that looked perfect. A town in Pennsylvania has this Changemaker-in-Residence program, where they pay for driven, creative young people to come to their town and do cool shit (aka social innovation). They have an interesting theory of change:

“We believe that the more creators and trend-setters we can encourage to play in our community, the more others will want to move here. So your one and only expectation is to create, create, create. Be a positive force for change that serves as a magnet for others to join you.”

It sounds like a dream-come-true! Creative work, with mentorship and housing included, in a town surrounded by incredible natural beauty would be amazing. But as I filled out the application I butted up against a painful contradiction. I truly believe that brain-drain poses a serious threat for the social and economic vitality of rural communities, and educated young people can have an outsized impact on the health of these towns. The problem is that, with a population of 80,000 people, State College doesn’t seem rural in comparison to my own hometown. Winfield has a shrinking population of about 250 people. No joke! I looked it up.

I’ve spent my whole life thinking that I would get out of Winfield and never look back. Yet I’m faced with the uncomfortable knowledge that, if I truly care about creating social change, there is nowhere in the world that I can be more valuable than in the very place that I fled. So I will go home.

Of all the careers I’ve imagined, this is the most terrifying. I don’t know precisely what I will be working on, or how I will fit into the small town culture (I wasn’t exactly popular in school), or what it will mean for my future. All I know is that I have to try to create change close to home before I take on global challenges, or it will haunt me forever.

On the bright side, Winfield offers the same perks of natural beauty, freedom to create, easy access to mentors, and affordable housing that the Changemaker-in-Residence program does. Who knows!? Maybe I can entice some of my big-city friends to come play in Winfield, and it won’t be so bad 😉

Until next time.

(un)Ambiguously yours,

jm