What About Me? Choosing Joy Over Practicality in Higher Education

By the time I was nearing retirement, I had climbed as far as I could in the Army. I no longer needed points, promotions, or another degree to advance. And that’s when the question hit me: What about me? What have I done for me?

In this episode of Have a Cup of Johanny, I open up about how I finally admitted that nursing would never be my path, why business administration left me uninspired, and how I made the “selfish” decision to chase joy instead of practicality. But how trying to validate this decision left me crying. 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Have a Cup of Joani
• 1:18 Approaching Retirement: The Military Transition
• 4:32 The Question: What About Me?
• 8:57 Chasing the Wrong Dreams
• 15:12 Finding True Joy in Writing
• 20:42 Choosing Joy Over Practicality
• 24:46 The Ordinary Brujas Announcement

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Oh we could, we could fly. Welcome back to have a Cup of Johnny. This season isn't about hustling harder. It's about coming home to yourself, to your voice, to your breath, to the quiet truth that you're still here and you're not starting over. You're starting again. This is your space to reflect, reset and remember who to tell you. So pour your cafecito and let's begin. Hello everyone, and welcome back to have a Cup of Joani podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:41

This September, I've been sharing the lessons I've learned in higher education, and not just academic ones, y'all, but the life lessons that come with each chapter. We've talked about leaving and staying. We've talked about going back through the army years and choosing something that is safe. But this episode is different because this one asked a question that kept ringing in my head as I got closer to retirement, and that question was what about me? What have I done for me? Are you all ready? All right, let's go, all right.

Speaker 1: 1:29

So here I am. I'm in the point in my life where I am nearing retirement. I am in that like buffer zone five years out from retirement, and the wise thing to do when you're in that timeline in your career is to start thinking, to start developing a plan. So that way this life change doesn't become a whiplash. And that's what I was doing. I was doing that during this time, just understanding where I wanted to be for the next chapter in my life. At this point I didn't need promotion points any longer. Career was stable. My son was a junior, sophomore junior and then eventually a senior. So I had the breathing space after years of grinding and in the army and grinding as a single mom and then a new wife and then integrating families and things of that nature. So I had this buffer per se and this lull that I think that's the best way to describe it. And within that lull, that's when I started to get really introspective, because it's almost like the mortality of your career becomes very blatant, very visible at this time, particularly for me. I'm going to focus on my experience, because that's all that I can talk about here, but it was very blatant for me like oh shoot, you know my career is going to die, for lack of better words. You know I'm going to reach expiration. That's what we call it.

Speaker 1: 3:19

Everyone expires at one point or another, from the Army, from military service, and you have to come to that conclusion that you're going to switch over from being a full-time military person where you have like the schedule, you have these things that you're so well-versed on, that has become like second nature to you and you're going to jump into something that you haven't done for a very long time and potentially have forgotten how to do that, and that is be a civilian. We like to joke, we like to say how I can't wait to get out of uniform and I can't wait not have to do PT and get up all dark 30 and all this other stuff, but when the reality hits you, it's like this anxiety that comes over you. I know it came over me because I'm like what am I going to do? And it's something about the fear of the unknown that just like really creates that palpitation and wants hard and it really makes you sit down with that thought that you need to understand how your life is going to look like after you make this transition. And the best way to ease that anxiety is to come up with a plan and to start working on that plan. So, so, during this low, one question that I kept coming up with time after time after time, was what about me? Because when you seen that light at the end, like of the retirement tunnel, and then you know that you're like you can just touch it right now, you can just extend your hand and touch it.

Speaker 1: 5:05

And then for me, I look back those years, those 15 years of things that I've done before and I've done like really great things In the army. I have proven myself over and over and over again. I have done things that I would never have been able to do had I not been there wearing the uniform, became a parent my greatest joy and accomplishment is my son, and I did a chunk of that on my own while wearing army boots, and to me that's wow. I like I don't even know how I did it when I think about it, but I did it. But doing all of that required me to do things for others, for the job, for the career, for the institution, and really not put myself first but put other people first. And now, when I ask myself that question, what have I done? For me, the answer to that was nothing, not much.

Speaker 1: 6:10

And I thought about my bachelors, my associates, and you heard me say that in the previous episode. I did that to gain points, not because it was something that I wanted to do, not because that was something that I was passionate about, although I did found some really interesting things in there, don't get me wrong. Like, especially, justice Administration Associates was very eye-opening, very interesting for me because I found a lot of things that I didn't know about when it comes to civil law and law and all this other stuff. So that, to me, was amazing and it's something that I kept. Some of the books, something that I still use to write certain stories, you know, to make it more authentic Business as well, the marketing classes that I took as part of that. That's something things, lessons and nuggets that I still use to this day.

Speaker 1: 7:06

But me embarking on those things had nothing to do with what Joah wanted to do and it had everything to do with what Joah needed to do in order to accomplish those things. Those survival needs that I had at that point and I remember during this time as well how nursing had been kind of like that safe career choice, because it was like I'd been validated on that by my mother, by those nurses in the hospital when I was taking care of my grandmother. So I really thought this was what I wanted to do and you heard me say it I really put a lot of effort into this until I got to a point where I couldn't do it. And then that's when I switched gears. And then I got the justice administration and the business administration bachelor's out of all those other classes that I took but couldn't finish into a degree for nursing, a BSN. And that was, I think, the one thing when I thought of that. That was like wow, I've been chasing the wrong thing. Because even while I was doing the justice administration and business administration, I was still looking for a way to still do the nursing, to finish that nursing.

Speaker 1: 8:32

And it happened during this lull, within the answers that I was giving myself from that question that asked what have I done for me? What have you done for me? Lately, you know that question it was more serious in my head, but it was embarrassing and cringe inside to think like, wow, joanne, you were chasing the wrong thing. All this time. You thought, because someone said that you were good at this, you went head first into this path without really looking inward to see if it was something that you could sustain long-term.

Speaker 1: 9:17

And when I had these moments because this didn't just happen in one moment, this was like months of me thinking it over and over and over and coming back to that question, and I figure out that there's a big difference, y'all. There's a big difference from caring for someone you love versus caring for other people professionally, as a career. And I get a little little, I get a little emotional about that, because I was like this close I'm putting my fingers together very close but I was this close to choosing something that would have not given me joy at all but would probably depleted everything out of me. And I remember during this time I was like God, jo, you don't even like hospitals. And that was when it's like I really beat myself up when it comes to this, y'all, I shouldn't have done that, but that was only, I know, a little bit better not to do myself that way, but I really beat myself up because I was like Joette, you don't even like hospitals. Like that. I hate hospitals, I don't like going to them. If I can avoid them, I will. If I can see the doctor through a video call, I will. And I just I don't like it Like I equate hospitals with bad news.

Speaker 1: 10:41

And it's for me going to hospitals quite a lot as a young kid, when my grandma and my relatives were trying to figure out my eye situation. I have a lazy eye, strabismo, and nothing was ever good. Just felt like I was prodded and asked to do all these things and ask all these questions, and then the adults in the room will always get like all sad eyes and everything about whatever the doctor said. So as a child I always equated to like hospitals are bad. And then I became an older child, a teenager, and then I saw my grandma in the hospital and I had to be there for her to translate and be kind of like this personal nurse for her. And sure enough, none of that was good either. So I don't equate hospital with good things, and that's the thing.

Speaker 1: 11:32

I couldn't believe that I was that close to making a decision that would have made me so miserable. Now I tell my husband I was like I would never have been cut out to be a nurse. First of all, I don't like inflicting pain on other people, so just like doing that, anything that a person will be like oh you know, or anything like that, I would have left the room. I would have been like I'm sorry, I'll leave you be, you know, and then that's it, and then I will go to the break room or whatnot and not do anything, dead, and I will go to the break room or whatnot and not do anything, and just the whole being in that setting just makes me really sad from my experience before. So I would have essentially just created this life. That would have been going against my joy, what I like to do, my personality, my joy, what I like to do, my personality myself. But during this time it's like I knew what I didn't want to do. I knew that I didn't want to do nursing. I wasn't cut out for that. It wouldn't give me joy.

Speaker 1: 12:38

I also took a look at business administration, because I did roll that over in my head quite a few times. You know, should I go for an MBA? And I remember talking to my husband about it too, and he was like yeah. And even me I was like, yeah, that's a good idea. It would have been easy, an easy path for me, because I already had the bachelor, so it would have been an easy transition and fewer classes to accomplish when it comes to this. But it wouldn't be me if it was easy. I'm like, easy, what is that? No, let's do it the hard way.

Speaker 1: 13:18

So I started really going down my timeline, my history. It was like this nostalgic kind of loop in my head because I really had to go back to when did I feel like myself? When did I truly feel that joy? And here I am, having been in the United States for decades already at this point and still remembering my grandma, my motherland and what I experienced there. And it is so magical to look back at that and that's what I was doing during this time, because I really had to search about those moments that brought me joy and that was so organically me. But I didn't have to put a face, like I say, and I went back to that time when my grandma used to just rock me on the rocking chair outside of our front porch in the Dominican Republic before the sun used to set. And we will be there as the sun would set and we would read as the sun will set in the Dominican Republic, over the little hatch houses with sink roofs on them, and that was so magical. That's why, to this day, I love reading and I remember just rocking and just reading these stories or reading letters, so that way I will know how to read and then she will read me things, whether it was prayers or poems.

Speaker 1: 15:04

Poems were such a big thing and it was not practical at all, y'all. But it was so, ah, so different, so lovely, so magical, and I was like that's where I want to be. I want and I've always said it, I want to get paid to read and write. It was a joke before, but now, like since then, I've been taking it more seriously because that's exactly what I want for myself. I want to be in a position where people are paying me to read and write. That's it. But it's still that voice, though in my head at that time, where it's like that's not practical. What are you going to do with that?

Speaker 1: 15:54

So I went to a writing conference because I was like, let me test it out, let me see if this is truly what I want to do with that. So I went to a writing conference because I was like, let me test it out, let me see if this is truly what I want to do. Let me be in a room filled with writers, with authors and SMEs, subject matter experts, those people that have done it and done it well, to let me know what is true, how you go about doing this. Let me dip my feet in the water to see if this is something I want to do. So I went to a writing conference Horrible experience, horrible. It was awful I have written something, because I've always been writing things. That should have been another green flag that I should have looked at and be like Joanne, you're always writing, come on now, you know what you want to do. You're just not being truthful, but I wrote this thing and, mind you, it was not good.

Speaker 1: 16:48

It's just those stories that you write when you don't even know what you're doing. You don't even know the concept of the story. You know the concept of the story from reading, reading a lot, but it really is still not enough to make a cohesive story that has a solid structure that readers can follow. So now, looking back at that, I understand what I was missing, but nevertheless it had some good words in there and I shared this. I was super confident. I was like, yes, they asked like who wants to share? And I shared it. And my stories have English and Spanish and Spanglish in them because my main characters, they speak like me, they interlace both languages and I got so much flag about that that, right there, took me out. I remember leaving that writing conference in tears, like I didn't do the social or anything else. I was like I cannot, because you have to understand they were wrong for that. But I was also very emotional because that's one of my first pieces of writing that I was sharing with others in a public setting. So to have that kind of feedback, that was just atrocious. It was a stab in the heart for me.

Speaker 1: 18:18

Not just that the microaggression of the comments of like, if you're writing this way, why are you here? You should be in Latin America. You know that was one of those comments. Or, who do you think your target audience is? Mind you, I'm like, I'm not a writer at that time. Like I'm writing stories, but I'm not. You know, like I don't know nothing. It's like well, who is your target audience? Your target audience speaks English and you have all these Spanish words in there and stuff like that. You know, because you're in America, therefore it needs to be in English. And what was another one? Oh, but even if you go to Latin America, you know that they don't read that much, so it's not like you're gonna make any money out of it.

Speaker 1: 18:53

It was like something like that too, and I'm like and, mind you like, well, I don't know anything about writing. I do know a lot about microaggressions, racism and discrimination, and that was all of that in that room and I didn't appreciate it and I just felt attacked and I took it very personal because, once again, this is like my very first piece. I'm in a public setting my first time, sharing this with people, and I took it very personal because, once again, this is like my very first piece. I'm in a public setting my first time, sharing this with people. And I just left in tears and I was like, well, maybe this is not for me. I was like, maybe this is not what will bring me joy, because here I am crying. And I called my husband and he was like just come home and it was so awful because this was a trip that I had looked forward to for so long.

Speaker 1: 19:46

I remember I was on social media asking for tips about how to behave. What do I do at a writer's conference? This was my very first one and I was so hyped up. I had reserved a hotel way in advance, got my tickets, went in there and register and all of that Got into a plane to do this because it was in California and I was in Wisconsin. Because it was in California and I was in Wisconsin, took leave way ahead to make sure that that time was free and told a lot of people that this was what I was going to do. To kind of like I feel so silly. To kind of like pursue my destiny, you know, pursue what I've always wanted to do. It blew up in my face and I was so, so distraught over this, but that's not the end of this story. I want you all to come back next Tuesday so you all can hear the end of that story.

Speaker 1: 20:50

Nevertheless, here's the lesson when it comes to this, and what I learned from all of this is that sometimes you gotta question yourself and do like an asthma check to see if you're heading in the right direction. Are you doing the things that you should be doing to bring joy into your life? Because I feel that what I learned from here is that you need both. You need practicality, but you also need love and joy. And perhaps, if you're in a situation like me where you have to survive first, perhaps the first things that you do is you do it for practicality, you do it so that way you can survive and make enough money until you're stable and then, once you are, then you can do things out of love and for joy and to nourish yourself and hopefully you can grow those skills so that way your love and your creativeness and your joy can also make you money, because we can't survive, unfortunately, with just joy and creativity. We need to make money.

Speaker 1: 22:00

I know people romanticize the starving artist thing, but that's not gonna work y'all. You can be an artist all day long, but you can't be starving. If you're starving, you can't give your creativity to others, so you need to be making some money off of your art and that's something that I want to leave you all with. That. While you may have to choose practicality at some points in your life, like I did, eventually you will need to make the joyful choice. Selfishness isn't always bad. Sometimes it's the healthiest decision to make for yourself. And also education evolves with you. What you need in your 20s may not be what you need in your 40. And it's okay to take that pause to utilize the lulls in your life to reevaluate the choices that you made, the direction that you're going to see if it's still worthwhile, if it's still part of who you are and if it's still in line with your values, your systems and your lifestyle.

Speaker 1: 23:12

In talking about writing, I just want y'all to know that I finished the Ordinary Brujas, the ARCs, the Advanced Reader Copies, and they are in Booksprout and in BookFunnel just for you. So if you are an ARC reader, an Advanced Reader Copy reader and reviewer, pay attention to this and go ahead and click on them on Booksprout or on BookFunnel. I will put the links on the show notes for you. Because, guess what? I chose joy. You will hear more about that in the next episode.

Speaker 1: 23:51

Eventually, I chose joy and joy comes from writing and from reading. Chose joy and joy comes from writing and from reading, and it's something that I eventually got back to it while I gave it up, and you'll hear more about that in the next episode. It's a good new story because I came back and now we have the ordinary bruja here and I have you all to witness this comeback. All right, so come back for this comeback, kid here, and I will see you next time on the have a Cup of Johnny podcast. Bye, thank you. Visit haveacupofjoanniecom for more stories, blog posts and the books that started it all. Thank you for being here. Until next time, be soft, be bold and always have a cup of joannie.