Recession for community advancement

A year ago I set myself the goal of 1) regularly volunteering for something I care about and 2) joining a performance group. I just realized I do both of those things now! Any time I bemoan the sad state of my career, I should remind myself of how far I've come. I always get into this rut of people telling me someone with my education and skills "should" have a better job, but these magical shoulds don't create a career out of nothing. It only ends up hurting me when I listen to the shoulds, because it makes me think something must be seriously wrong with me for me not to be able to obtain the sorts of jobs MIT grads do. I don't think there's anything wrong with me! There, I said it. My passions unfortunately don't cleanly align with career advancement, but so what. I feel healthier than I have in years, I have almost nothing to get stressed out about, and I live nearby some seriously beautiful nature. And, my toughest decision these days is whether to participate in my final improv performance or go up to the fnf campout on time. Tough times man. I'm broke, but so are half the people I know. Recession brings us together.

I figured out my finances, and if I omit student loan payment, utilities, and rent, I have $25/day to live on. For everything else - transportation, food, clothes, furniture, fun, medical, forget about savings. I've begun logging how much I spend each day, which is satisfying. Thursday and Friday I went out and spent $35 each day, so today my budget is $5. I can try. Keeping my ears peeled for full time job opportunities, but digging in the satisfaction of poor-dom in the meantime....