I'm Somewhere Between a Snake and a Mongoose...and Dwight.

My roommate and I are both in that place in life that old people tell us is 'oh so exciting': the point where we have to figure out what to do with our lives. Reality: this is terrifying.

Recently, we had a conversation about jobs postings. Almost every job that I look at 'requires' at least one year of experience in the field, and all of the jobs she's looking at 'require' at least five years experience in the field and a Masters degree. So much for being entry-level. While commiserating over the difficulties of finding jobs that we're 'qualified' for and the frustration at being rejected when we 'don't have enough experience' to take an entry-level position, I said that if I could just get into a room with these people, and sit down for an interview, I could prove to them that I am capable of doing that job. "Besides," I added, "I think every job is a little like working as a cashier. After a while, you know the ins and outs and it's all just another day at the office." At the time, I was thinking about my job in the store, which I was afraid to try at first. I was afraid of being off on my register; I didn't know the store; I didn't know the product; I had to answer phones; I had to deal with people I didn't know, and worse, be nice to them; the list went on and on and on. Fortunately, my need for money outweighed my irrational fear of being a miserable cashier, and I took the job, which is now boring me out of my mind. A few days later, my roommate looked at me and said, "You know, I think you're right."

Everyone knows that most of us are afraid of trying new things because we're afraid of failure. None of us like to look stupid, or feel like we look stupid (two very different things, I might add), and that's okay. That's the attitude that sparks us to try a little harder and do a little better each time around. However, I have another, shall we say, additional theory: we're afraid to try new things because we're afraid of being Dwight.

My roommate is an avid watcher of The Office, and, I have to admit, I'm hooked. Interestingly, I didn't think it was all that funny until I started paying more attention to how the workplace functions and how the people interact. My place of business definitely has a Michael, the boss who has sort-of control because he gets an awful lot of help; we have a Jim, the competent one who actually knows what's going on; we have a Pam, who works all day and goes home at night to hone her artistic talent, which very few people are privileged enough to know about; and, most often, we have several Dwights running around.

Dwight is the character that makes the TV show possible. In the real workplace, however, a character like that is downright obnoxious. Upon reflection, we all have a little bit of Dwight in us. Some of us more than others. And yes, I am willing to admit to my inner Dwight. In fact, my inner Dwight was probably what was inhibiting my ability to make life decisions for several months.

We all know what Dwight's like, and, quite frankly, it's ridiculous. I'm willing to bet that most of us would read my claim that we all have an inner Dwight and immediately say, "Not me!"

Yes, you.

Think about it: we all want a little attention from the big cheese; we all have the urge to toot our own horns in order to get the attention of the big cheese; on occasion, we all have the desire to put someone else down in order to make our accomplishments look better. We probably all have something roughly equivalent in quirk to Dwight's beet farm in our lives as well.

So here's my question: why? Why can we not be satisfied with a job well done? With doing a job to the best of our abilities? Why can't we admit that someone else is better at something than we are, or that perhaps it's not worth the trouble to make ourselves look good in comparison to others? I can think of two possible answers: 'Money' or 'We've all had this morality lesson.' Either is a valid answer, although one is more disheartening than the other. And that would be the latter.

If we've all had that lesson, why didn't we learn it? And why is it okay for us to ignore it if we have learned it? Perhaps most importantly, why can't we acknowledge that, every once in a while, we fail to live up to our own expectations of ourselves?

While I don't condone donning our volunteer sheriff uniforms in order to smoke out whoever left their cigarette butts in the parking lot, I think it might be good if we all took a step back and not only acknowledged our inner Dwight, but took a lesson from the real Dwight. When we acknowledge our Dwight moments, we should say to ourselves: "Do I regret this? No. I believe [admitting to the situation] has made me stronger." We now have the strength to not only admit to and learn from our mistakes, but make ourselves better people as a result of them as well.

A Little Optimism Never Hurt Anybody

I recently had a conversation with someone that I hadn't seen in a while - a long while - and, quite frankly, I was unpleasantly surprised with his fatalism. He was incredibly well versed in every social evil that has ever happened, ever, in the history of forever. As the conversation went on, I challenged him with a question that my father and his straightforward, engineering-styled mindset introduced me to and that my Jesuit education reinforced and brought to the forefront: "What do you propose?" In other words, "What exactly do you plan on doing about it?"

If I was disappointed by his choice in conversational topic, I was even more disappointed my his answer: he gave me a long, drawn-out, convoluted answer that essentially added up to "I haven't the foggiest idea." He ended his monologue by saying, "We, of course, should pray for the situation."

Argle.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the power of prayer. I'm a believing, practicing Catholic, and throughout my life, I have seen firsthand the power that prayer holds. The thing is, I've seen the power of prayer enough to know that it itself does nothing for a situation. Now, before you get all riled and accuse me of being a false believer (parenthetically, I don't believe in judging what another person holds in their heart, but I suppose that's between you and God), let me explain what I mean here.

The great Catholic theologian and beloved children's author C.S. Lewis once said that prayer "doesn't change God - it changes me." From what I've seen, this is exactly the case. A person prays about a situation, and God grants them the tools they need to do something about the situation. God, however, does not fix the situation from on high. God fixes the situation by putting you here and giving you the tools you need to do something.

While I appreciate prayer, and pray regularly, and would never criticize a person for praying, I will say that thinking that prayer will change the situation - and not the self - is detrimental to both the individual and to larger society. Praying that better vaccinations come along isn't going to make better vaccinations come along; it's going to give us the gumption we need to lobby medical research labs to do the work to find a better vaccination. Praying isn't going to stop the drug trade; it's going to give us the nerve to fight back against a force that's working to hurt our children and our families.

Once we understand that prayer drives us to do, we can see why the fatalism that my conversation partner displayed was, to be frank, completely uncalled for. He literally predicted the fall of society - the entire world society, not just American society - as a result of the failure of the family. My question: Has the family failed? Yes, I understand that there are bad and even terrible family situations. Yes, I understand that government has a long way to go before we get to the point of being able to care for the people who need it most. Yes, I understand that children are in high security prisons because they didn't have a parental figure there to sit them down and tell them 'No.' I understand all of this. I am not an ostrich, burying my head in the sand.

However, I also see people - young people - who have happy marriages, happy children, and happy homes. I know more than one couple where a child was born out of wedlock and someone else stepped in and willingly became a parental figure to a child that was not their own. I see couples who are bending over backwards and giving everything they have to save a marriage that has become strained. Most of all, I see all of this happening under the ever-present and judging eye of people who say that the nuclear family has failed. Most of these couples that I see are from my own Catholic community - so I have to believe they pray. Knowing that these people pray and that God didn't rain down happiness sprinkles on them serves, I think, to prove my point: through prayer, God gives us the power to do something, but only if we aren't so fatalistic that we give up on the whole venture.

My third and last point is this: I think prayer is by nature an optimistic practice. I do not believe that a person with no hope for anything prays. I do not believe that hopelessness leads to prayer. I do not think that a person can simultaneously believe that society is going to hell in a handbasket (which should have happened repeatedly by now, if fatalists were correct) and pray that things get better.

I think that prayer is the action of hope, and that through hoping for change and praying for the strength to achieve it, that change is, in fact, realized.