An unusual interest in the image that stares back from the mirror.
Curiosity about life on the job, such as "What's your boss like?" or "What if I don't make out?"
Preoccupations like these reflect awareness of the molting process by which they will shed a prejob persona and assume an as yet unperceived one.
As people reach the first-job threshold, they are confronted by a new and troubling sense of self. It is one of exposure, of vulnerability to unfamiliar forces. The comforts of known places, people, and patterns fade, and the individual stands at the edge of an abyss over which there arches a bridge-but is it strong enough to bear one's weight? And does the individual have the fortitude to try to cross it?
First-job hunters are often short on perspective. Elements of all kinds swirl about, some seeming large, some small, most triggering exaggerated reactions because complexities are not understood and frame of reference is lacking. But their confusion becomes understandable when it is realized that they are exposed not to a single crisis but to many. And each crisis has a different potential for trouble for each about-to-be worker. There are several categories of crisis faced by this age group-often in combination.
"Must I Commit Myself?"
Many hold back, asking themselves whether they are ready to take the step, commit themselves to the world of work. You'd think the committing referred to a mental institution rather than to the Big Time, that part of life that offers unmatched challenge, potential for accomplishment and self-fulfillment at least equal to any other. It's a game that in terms of stakes makes other endeavors seem like little league. Then why the hesitation?
What is being reflected is a kind of claustrophobia, a fear of being locked in and helpless.
Lisa and Dan talked about how they were going to pack it all in and go away together. Out west. Dan could be a forest ranger or something. Lisa would be a great painter. No way were they going to let their lives be tailor-made for them.
But when high-school graduation came, there was a change. Lisa seemed as gung-ho as ever. But one night she took Dan's face in her hands and looked him in the eye and said, "You're gonna go to college, aren't you?" And Dan mumbled, yeah, he thought he might give it a try, just for a year, not that he and Lisa weren't eventually going to take off on their own, but just, you know . . .
Lisa-talented-refused to go to college, but stayed around their Connecticut suburban home, commuting to New York to take classes at the Art Students League. Dan went to Brown. He did very well there-so well that he seemed to feel he had to explain it to Lisa: "Not that I really care about all that shit, it's a lot of useless stuff, but it doesn't hurt to have the degree."
"Degree? You mean the whole four years?"
"Sure. What's the sense of starting and not getting it? I mean ..."
Although they still talked about taking off someday, and although neither of them said anything about any lessening of commitment, Dan and Lisa were both seeing other people.
When Dan decided to go on to get an M.B.A., Lisa had had it. Dan tried to explain that, while it was all a crock, maybe it would help when they set up their little business together in Montana. Lisa said, "Dan, you're not going to Montana. You're not going anyplace." She took off.
Dan missed her, but graduate school absorbed so much time and energy that the wound didn't seem to hurt so much. He distinguished himself. As graduation ap-proached, he was the target of various recruiting efforts. Dan could pick and choose among career possibilities.
And one morning it came to him that he did not want any of them. He broke two appointments. He just sat in his room. He wondered where Lisa had gone, whom she was with, what was happening with her. Somebody had said she was in New Mexico, Santa Fe or someplace. Maybe if he went there....
Dan Ehrlich was suffering-over a prolonged period- through a severe crisis of commitment, or rather a crisis of inability to commit. There were several paths open at this stage. Dan continually froze at the thought of taking any of them. He drifted wherever the current would take him, decided as little as he could.
He found himself experiencing a series of fast-changing ideas about his future. The first, strangely enough, was that he would study art. But after some thought, he suspected this was simply a means of competing with and possibly triumphing over Lisa. His next thought: He would take up deep-sea diving and join the glamorous group of people seeking treasure in the ocean depths. (This came after Peter Gimbel's feat of recovering a safe from the sunken Andrea Doria.) A few weeks later, another thought came, and lingered with its promise of sylvan solitude and an absence of pressure. Becoming a forest ranger, as he had once discussed with Lisa, seemed a good way to go. . . .
Unprepared to tie themselves to a specific career path, people like Dan will wrestle with desperate strength-of mind and ingenuity-to prevent the sunny open fields from turning into a constraining tunnel.
Dan Ehrlich's struggle to stay out of the job mainstream is duplicated by many who, for one reason or another-lack of aggressiveness to face the change to the working life; fear of failure; laziness-can't bring themselves to make the commitment.
"Fantasy employment" is one placement counselor's phrase for the occupations that some hesitators dream about. Dan's idea about becoming a forest ranger fits into that category. Material returns from such professions may be meager, but for those to whom commitment to a "regular job" seems humdrum, the aura of the offbeat activity- in which performance judgments are difficult to make- often feels right. (You don't judge a forest ranger by the usual yardstick of affluence-expensive car, kids in private school, luxury home and so on.)
Of course, it is wise to distinguish between those for whom an exotic job title like forest ranger or poet is an indulgence and those for whom it is a serious calling.
