CX. Marketing Yourself -

Marketing one’s self has always been a somewhat foreign concept for me.
Yes, I  know that when applying for any endeavor, It is necessary to project a genuine quality in my essays. I know that I have to be privy of how my resumé is being read; are there any gaps of time where, presumably, I’m just not doing anything, or rather, not doing enough?

I have forever felt like marketing one’s self is akin to the more severe paraphrasing of the aforementioned; the selling of one’s self. To sell one’s self is weighed down by negative connotations.

After all, bargaining and hyperbole are part and parcel of the sales pitch.

Yet, in this ever expansive world that I find myself in, filled with self-made entrepreneurs who seem to make up my entire generation, my Whartonite college companions, and my business-glorifying family, it seems like I have no choice but to operate as a business.

Where can I utilize my ideas? To whom can I sell my story idea? Who will give me a chance to fiscally gain from my writing?

Am I selling myself short?

It feels as though I should be opening up my own cupcake bakery - but I don’t want to.

So here I stand, or rather walk: Full of ideas, plans, patiently honing my writing to a masterful skill.

Yet I am without even a penny found on the sidewalk to show for it.

Clichés strike me as a shameful addition to any language and so I won’t necessarily stand by the imagery of considering myself a “diamond in the rough.” Yet, I can see myself as this lone tulip amongst the weeds growing alongside the concrete sidewalk.

Almost 1 full year since the culmination of college, I have been on a countless number of interviews and each time I feel like I am selling myself in earnest.
Again and again I find myself relating my academic journey and having to justify why I am not a virtuoso in my desired career choice.

Reality has settled in: We all are going to have to market ourselves more so than ever and I think it is unwarranted, if not a tad bit demeaning.

In the near future, I’m anticipating having to prove myself to a group of people for whom boasting no longer seems sinful. Not even a month afterward I’ll be a novice jet-setter amongst an experienced group; fortunately or not, I’ll have to prove myself worthy, not so much of being in their presence, but of being present, there and then; in that place and at that time.

Marketing one’s self means constant repetition. For a person who is frequently nostalgic and dislikes change more so than the same old same old, (note the repetition), I cannot stand this repetition.

I want to move on. Let’s move on.

“Do you understand what the song means?”

I have answered affirmatively to this question, in reply to the same persons, no less than 10 times. What will it take for me to stop having to sell my knowledge? Yes, I understand the language… and you’re not convinced.

Though I have the most distant scope of what economics is, a semester during my senior year of high school has taught me that the market is constantly changing because it is heavily dependent on the quote on quote, invisible hand.

It is absolutely impossible for me, or anyone else, to no longer be in demand at some point of time.

Obsessing over whether I’ll ever find a future husband and thinking, will I ever be in demand, is unnatural and it is an unfortunate thought for anyone to have.
Why should humankind come to an end because of some manmade-influenced-society’s demands?

Materialism have never struck me as lethal; therapeutic, yes, but lethal, no.

Yet, I think it is time for the start-ups, the sensationalized lists such as the Gate’s Foundation’s “30 under 30” and Forbes Magazine’s age-threshold lists, which supposedly define what being successful means, to come to an end.

Start-ups are the epitome of redundancy.

Yet another social media platform; and you are different how? Oh, so you have developed a way to verbally record tweets? I suppose this make you a genius now.

Aren’t we the same people who criticize media for sound-bytes and yet a young'un who develops a sound-byte form of social media is handed money in the thousands. There goes a grant for another person to waste time.

As us old-schooler’s say: Enough is enough.