Sean Aiken - The One-Week Job Project: One Man, One Year, 52 Jobs  

A crowd gathers behind me and cries out in unison. My fingers clutch the railing of the metal bridge. The platform on which I stand leads to empty space. On either side of the 160-foot river canyon, peaceful snowcapped trees taunt me with their calm. I turn to the crowd and craft an exaggerated fearful expression, then force a smile.

Once they get to one, I need to jump. I have to jump. Itll be so anticlimactic if I dont. Everyone knows you cant back out of a countdown. Even if I jump five seconds after the fact, it wont mattera countdown is a countdown.

My toes creep over the edge of the bridge to which Im attached by only a thick bungee cord. I glance toward the picturesque mountain backdrop, and for a moment I forget my current reality, lost in appreciation of the beauty that surrounds me.

The cheer from the crowd jolts me back to the task at hand. I peer past my toes. One hundred sixty feet below, the river eagerly awaits my descent.

I tell the muscles in my legs to contract. They dont want to. My precious seconds of leeway are about to run out. If I dont jump, Ill hear the sighs of a disappointed crowd. The people who are rooting for me now will suddenly lose interest. Little do they know, this is the most important jump of my life.

I have no idea what the next year will hold, where my different jobs will lead, what Ill end up doing, or who Ill meet. I wonder if Ill get enough job offers, where Im going to sleep while on the road, how Im going to travel from city to city, and how Ill support myself for an entire year without pay. Most important, I question if Ill be able to heed the insights I gain when my journey is over. The uncertainty is loud, my self-doubts determined, fear pervasive. But Im excited. Ive made excuses for too long. Ready or not, its time to take the leap.

I take a deep breath, check my harness one last time, and step off the bridge.

I N MY PARENTS BASEMENT, I woke up ready to start my morning routinehop in the shower, brush my teeth, put on some clothes, grab something to eat, then run out the door. A moment before I tossed my covers aside, I realized that I didnt have to go to school. And it wasnt just that day. For the first time in my life, I didnt have to go to school again, ever.

Id felt ready to graduate for some time. I wanted to do my own thing, to start working toward something. The only problem was that I had no idea what this something was.

For as long as I could remember, my life had been organized for me. The most major decision making I did came every four months when Id spend an hour looking at a course calendar and chart my life for the next semester. Advisors told me how many credits I needed, the courses required to earn my degree. A schedule told me when to be at school. Teachers told me when assignments were due. If I paid attention in class, theyd even tell me how to get a good grade. I was so focused on receiving the best grades I could that I didnt care whether I was actually learning something. I was taught to focus on grades, and I gave my teachers what they wanted. After all, good grades are what got me into a decent college and what would land me a decent job. Good grades are what would give me value.

When summer came, I enjoyed my freedom, never feeling any guilt over not doing something else, something more. There was no need to worry about the long term. I had a simple planfinish my degree. Id be back at school in the fall and so could spend the next four months making money, partying with friends, taking weekend road tripswhatever, it didnt matter. There was no need to stress about anything, least of all the job I got. It was just a summer job. And I, after all, was just a student.

When I graduated, it all changed. No longer a student, I was suddenly expected to provide a legitimate answer to the question What do you do for a living?

I wanted to accomplish great things, help others, make a difference. I wanted to do everything and be everywhere. I had big ambitions, but I was totally directionless. Id been thrown ill-prepared into a wide open landscape in which I could create anything. I thought this freedom was what Id longed fora chance to achieve my goals, to live up to this alleged potential many saw in me. But with no course schedules or professors to guide me, I experienced this freedom as a daunting reality rife with expectations. Now it was up to me to determine my path.

In the back of my mind I knew that I was lucky to have options at allsince so many people, especially at a time of economic downturn, dontyet I found myself overwhelmed by the expectations of others and my own self-doubts.

A few months removed from my student status, I became depressed. I lay awake at night asking myself lifes big questions, and I wasnt finding any answers. In July, I and a group of close friends went a few hours up the coast to my friends cabin, as we did every year. I wasnt much fun to be around. Admittedly it would have taken some extra energy given the best of circumstancesI was the fifth wheel in a weekend getaway with my two best friends, their girlfriends, and their dogs. Id go for walks on the beach by myself and think about the routineness of everything. I could see my entire life laid out:

Id come home from my unfulfilling nine-to-five job and cook dinner. Then, by the time Id cleaned up, Id finally have a moment to relax. Exhausted from the day, Id flop on the couch, flick on the TV for a couple of hours, then go to bed and wake up and do it all over again the next day. My friends and I would keep our annual tradition and go up to the cabin. But now wed sit in lawn chairs, watch our kids run around, our dogs dig in the sand, and reminisce about the past.

It wasnt just the thought of routine that scared me but the idea of not having passion in my life. Life without passion meant finding trivial ways to pass the time. Nobody could convince me otherwise.

In search of answers, I decided to travel. I spent the next year and a half alternating between stints at home and on the road. I backpacked throughout Europe and Southeast Asia, taught English in Thailand, and moved to Quebec to learn French. I never stayed in one place long enough to feel that I needed to plan more than a day ahead.

Avoidance became my self-prescribed coping mechanism. If I was always in transition, there would never be enough time to build up the expectation that I should be doing something more with my life. As soon as questions about my future began to surface, I could move on, hoping an answer would appear in the process.

Traveling taught me a lot about myself. I experienced new cultures, met all sorts of people, and was forced outside of my comfort zone on a daily basis. I learned to appreciate the small moments where life becomes simple and the beauty in all that surrounds us is crystal clear. On the road, people I met accepted who I was that day, in that moment. A certain anxiety always accompanied me when it was time to go home, where friends and family had preconceptions about me and what I should be doing. At home, it was all too easy to slip back into comfortable routines and conform to the established expectations of familiar faces.