Chained, but in sight of the key

Sound Off:
Megadeth: Rust in Peace

Today was the day that I realized that I am finally heading in the right direction on my life's path. The journey has been all but straight, and I anticipate and welcome the curves that lay ahead, but at least I'm soon to get off this goddamn caravan of idiots that I call my current dayjob.

I had a couple of two-hour conversations today, the first with my current boss, the second with my boss for 2 year who I view very much as the one true mentor figure that I've come across, at least in the older activist crowd. I can't even begin to describe the world of difference between the first and second conversations. But most importantly, the first confirmed for me that I've really got to reset my internal clock for when to bail from a sinking ship. Over the course of more than 4 years, I have been loyal, I have taken on the jobs that no one else would, and I've played nice with my clueless co-workers. I've associated myself with an institution that can't get its head out of the sand, and surely have been tied with its inability to commit to a position on specific policy issues, absolutely quixotic pursuit of pie-in-the-sky and high-concept strategies, and top-down approach to communities.

My decision to go to school has been plagued with a deep personal conflict about how the overeducated class has dominated the power structure of so-called community-based work, and also a deep-set resistance to the whole trend of law-degree wielding neophytes grabbing up all the jobs, legal or otherwise, in the field of community service, organizing, and advocacy. I was not convinced that a graduate degree was the right way to go - couldn't I do more, and make more of an impact by releasing myself from the shackles of this organization and moving on to become part of an organizing or advocacy group?

Do I want to be a part of the cadre of lawyers who have infiltrated most spaces, usually operate within the confines of legal thinking, and have shifted the dialogue around community empowerment and growth into one almost wholly about legal rights (when I believe that transformative societal change is not rooted solely in assuring "fair share" in a system that is in itself inherently unjust, unfair, and in many ways just plain sucks)?

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But now I see that leaving this job to attend school is not only a way to develop my skill set far more effectively than the dead-end job in which I'm currently situated. It is also a way for me to release myself from the confines of structured (and routine) thinking connected with the life of an organization. Even if the school that I eventually choose does not have the brightest or most progressive curriculum, I will be able to learn both in the classroom, and through the experience of being off campus, and a student in the field of local communities again, in a way that I haven't been for so long, if ever.

Shedding the skin, and the baggage, even, of working in a community or a supposed community organization is a refreshing step. I look forward to moving freely again, without the encumbrance of a past life. I look forward to being new, and learning anew, without the entrenched politics of the professionalized, 501(c)(3) setting. I look forward to being a volunteer in causes that I care about. So onward, as the time to decide between the schools that have accepted me draws ever nearer.