Part of the problem with getting old is the realization that you can't actually do all of the things you were told you could as a kid.

My generation (most of us anyhow), grew up being told there was absolutely nothing on the planet that we couldn't do. So you have fear of enclosed spaces and heights, it's OK Billy, you can still be an astronaut. It's no big deal that Sally looks like she got hit in the face with a shovel, she can still model! As long as she puts her mind to it.

That's the phrase it ends with. "Put your mind to it.".

The more I think about it, the more that phrase is a phenomenal load of bullshit that people have been feeding into for years.

And lately, it's really been chapping my ass. I have been looking for a new career lately, and I'm always met with the same response when I tell people why.

"You can be good at sales, you just have to put your mind to it".

By that logic, I could also be a brilliant neurosurgeon, Lindsay Lohan's next girlfriend, or a nuclear physicist.

Not gonna happen.

It occurred to me that I started this job to get out of sales, and they forced me back into it because of the market, despite my telling them honestly and openly that I sucked balls at it. So I'm getting tired of feeling guilty for sucking exactly as much as I told them I would.

Instead of putting my mind to it, I've decided to put my mind to something else: moving on to a place where I'm happy. And that, my friends, is a gigantic pain in the ass.

Maybe I've been in recruiting too long, or maybe I'm just bitter, but I have the absolute hardest time giving a flying shit about the interviews I go on. It's not that I don't want the job, I absolutely do, but I have apparently reached this point in life where they are no longer any source of stress. I was more stressed out on the commute to get there than I was during the actual interview.

Maybe that's a good thing, maybe that's the universe's way of telling me that I'm doing the right thing by moving on to something I actually want to do.

Either way, as long as I don't have to hear the phrase "put your mind to it", I'm in.

(Check out the links later on today, I'm in the process of updating them.)