A Job Without Struggle is Like a House You Cannot Afford

I have a friend who just bought a new house with his wife. It is a beautiful white house with four bedrooms and three bathrooms. Unprompted he shared with me that his home cost around$750,000. The fact they could afford such a home surprised me considering they were both so young and just got married, so I asked, “how did you ever save up for the down payment?” He went on to explain that his parents had given them the 10% necessary to buy the home. I’m not proud but I quickly became very envious and found myself upset how unfair it was that my wife and I would have to save for years to even afford a lesser home. My friend went on to explain how they would make the monthly mortgage payments. If each of them used their entire first paycheck of the month, without retirement savings, they could ALMOST cover the mortgage.

Over 50% ohouse_poorf their take home pay was going to be tied to one expense. It hit me; this great gift from his parents was very naïve. It was blatantly apparent they could not afford this house and near certain financial troubles were on the horizon the first time an unexpected expense arose.

 

This gift was actually setting them up for failure. His parents would have been much better off giving them this gift when they were properly prepared to use it.

I have met with 25-30 young professionals over the last two years and I can say that only two have had a better situation than I had after graduation. When I was a senior in at the University of Arkansas I was accepted into American University’s graduate program despite not having the minimum grade requirements or test scores. Then the only person I knew who lived in D.C. basically handed me his job working as a full-time Federal employee for the Air Force.

On my first day I was making more than teachers I knew with 20 years of experience. However, much like my friends in the house they can’t afford, I was not ready for this job.  This great job gave me a false sense of security that somehow my career was already set. This student program was set to give me preferential hiring status upon my completion of graduate school and left me thinking I had the whole world figured out. Well as most of you know I sat and watched as those a year ahead of me in the program could not find jobs and were forced to leave the Federal government.

I spent 18 months applying to over 120 jobs and did not land a single interview until month 9. Eventually I was forced to take a job I hated as a contractor that was unrelated to anything I had studied in school.Much like my friends in a house without enough income, I was in a great but temporary job, having never developed the proper skills that come through scrapping and fighting for that first job.

Similar to my friends who will not be able to save for retirement or rainy days because of this house, I lived in a world of false security convinced that applying online would be enough to land my second job because my ‘great first job was so impressive.’

Take solace in your unpaid internship or entry level job because your early to mid-twenties are a time to learn, make tons of mistakes, and grow so that when the great job comes you are prepared to excel and springboard it into the next job.
 
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