QotD: Go Get 'Em, Tiger?

Are you a go-getter or do you wait for good things to happen to you?
Submitted by sleepybear.

I used to think I was a go-getter, and I used to think I was a risk-taker.  Then, many years ago, I woke up and realized I was wrong.  I dreamed of all the risky things I'd do with myself (like take the Hill road at 100+mph), but there were always reasons I wouldn't do such a thing (completely unfair to do that without the road somehow being blocked off for me and me alone, because the chances of not wiping out, and thus potentially killing many people, were practically zero).  Eventually I came to accept that I was a dreamer, but had very little action in my soul.  Even after having done some pretty active things, like raising the money to go to Kenya for a study abroad in three month's time.  And, frankly, despite what everyone told me, I didn't believe going to Kenya was that much of a risk.  It certainly didn't occur to me that I was going out and getting what I wanted in raising the money to get there - I was too busy doing it to think about it.

So, I continued to feel passive, though there was an oddly dull ache in feeling that way.  I'd be curious to find out how artgeek perceived me, in terms of this question, once we'd gotten to know each other a bit.  When we'd met, I'd dragged myself and my now ex-husband across the country for graduate school.  But I was already admitted, and I knew what would be happening and so on.  Furthermore, not only was it the only school I'd been admitted too, it was the only one I'd applied for.  I felt I'd done a pretty half-assed job about looking for school, but I wasn't sure how to go about getting what I wanted.  Knowing that I was pretty much fumbling in the dark added to the feeling that I'm the type of person who waits for good things to come, because surely a "go-getter" would find a way to turn on the light.

As I implied, I didn't enjoy feeling of being cautious, but I couldn't shake it.  So I just accepted it (and, truthfully, the fact that I often accept things when I should perhaps continue to push only adds to that feeling, even now).  I chewed on it.  I may have gone so far as to mentally define myself that way.

Then one day, after my marriage had disintegrated, I decided to move half-way across the country.  I didn't have a job lined up.  I wasn't in graduate school again.  I'd only visited the city once, and had no friends there.  However, I had a dream, rooted in my Kenya trip, and the only way to give that dream a fighting chance was to move.  I wanted to be in graduate school again, and I knew who I wanted to work with and what I wanted to study.  The problem was that the people I wanted to work with were not based at a university, and therefore the only way to get into one or both of the universities I'd applied to was to move to the city my hoped-for adviser was in and start convincing professors they wanted to take me on as a student.

It wasn't easy.  Aside from the previously mentioned difficulties, I had to move out of an apartment I very much enjoyed and put my cat in a foster home.  I had to get rid of over half my stuff.  The sacrifices I had to make to follow my dream, even before moving, were myriad.  And then I had to move, all by myself (in a snowstorm no less, but if I add that my audience will probably start hearing "uphill both ways - and we liked it!).

It worked.  I've been admitted to one of the two universities, and I start this August.  I'm already attending lab meetings and thinking about pieces of dissertation projects.  I know I'm already making a mark in my lab meetings, because I refuse to hide out and be quiet - I demand of myself that I contribute, and this week I was thanked for those contributions in the most recent meeting.

This isn't to say that the move was the hardest part.  I'm unemployed at the moment, and despite my volley of applications, that doesn't seem to be changing.  I'm in a state of mental agony because for all that I want to start my research right this second, I don't have the money to do so without a job, and with a job I probably won't have time.  I haven't figured out how to get this latest, greatest good thing.

And that's how I know I can finally say that I'm a go-getter.  I got myself to Kenya.  I got myself into two graduate programs, at different times as I needed them.  I moved with very little safety net just to further my goals.  And now I'm frustrated because I'm suddenly stymied on how to get something I truly want.  I'm not sure that's ever happened before.  Yes, I've not gotten things I kind of want (a job at this exact moment comes to mind), but I've come to realize that I have never failed to get something I desperately want, and am willing to work for.

I'm a go-getter, but I think me I'm reaching my limits.  Alas.