By Michael J. Ilardo (aka Mike-the-Pharmacist)
I hesitate to be vulnerable online. If you reveal a need on the internet, you are soon bombarded with offers for $2,997 Masterclasses, $5,000 Mentors, and $15,000 all-inclusive courses. If you say you can’t afford it, they push it on you anyway. YOU NEED THIS! You are lying to yourself if you don’t get it! This class will pay for itself in 90 days! Money back guarantee! However when you apply for a refund, you find out that there was fine print that you didn’t read, and you don’t qualify.
And when you reveal you need financial help, you are spammed with scams, given video after video of the latest business deal, and asked to give your opinion on whatever thing they think will make you millions of dollars in 90 days! Money back guarantee! However when you apply for the refund, you find out you clicked a box with fine print you didn’t read, and you don’t qualify for the refund.
Sounds familiar.
But vulnerable I must be. Partly to encourage you that you are not alone, and partly to bring healing to myself. I don’t know where we went wrong, to be honest. It seemed like this country had turned a corner in a cowardly way a few decades ago, and the pioneer spirit left our land. The idea of giving your all for a dream or a cause seemed foolish, and in exchange we took the safe route. We exchanged our desire to find ourselves and use our talents and gifts to change this world for the comforts of cubicle conformity and for cozy pensions and health benefits galore.
I remember that in high school I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. My Italian grandfather was almost like ‘the Godfather’ in the sense he called the shots for everyone. One day he saw me at work and said, “Mike you should become a Pharmacist.” I had no idea what they did, but he explained it was a good job with good pay and good job security. I entered college still having no desire to be a pharmacist, still having no clue what a Pharmacist did, and knowing my entire life I loved to write. I was a writer. But writing would not pay the bills, according to everyone around me.
So pharmacy it was, and 18 years later, there are no jobs left in the land.
I do believe that passions come and go, and if you do something with all your heart you will find some comfort in the job. You will find things you love at the job and things that you hate. I am doing my “dream job” blogging, but working from home has it’s own challenges. Like 5-year-olds barging in my office begging for my cell phone, and older siblings arguing just outside my office. I’m not one that went out looking for a job from home. Besides writing, I love interacting with people and serving people. After learning a lot about the evils of the pharmaceutical companies, and seeing lives cut short from opiate addiction, the field of Pharmacy left me very conflicted and torn. Still, every job has its ups and downs. I often was able to steer people toward effective natural alternatives. CBD oil is a great option I believe in, instead of addicting opiates. Being around people all day long is a good thing if you want to serve people.
But the simple betrayal of it all is the fact that I pursued pharmacy for the job stability and didn’t embrace my natural talents out of fear of not being able to find a job. That is what is hard to take. The idea that society pushes you toward the safe career but today nothing and no one is safe. I was forced out of three job situations after the management that hired me was changed or downsized. I gave a year of my life to help open an independent pharmacy, only to have it close 3 years later, one month before we moved into our dream house. I jumped into K-marts with great enthusiasm only to see one after another fall like dominos, and I am not talking about pizza. When Amazon enters the prescription business if they haven’t already, more chain pharmacies will fall away.
There is a lot of deep deep stuff I could jump into about where this economy is going. I won’t get into things like doomsday prophesizing, but it seems, and it’s shown, things are getting worse. Those that have jobs have more demands on them. It’s harder to stay with one company. I read somewhere that 40% of Americans could not cover a basic $400 emergency if it were to happen. Most Americans are 1 or 2 semi-catastrophic events away from bankruptcy. Eighteen months ago I was making $135,000 a year as a Pharmacy manager, with health benefits and a car leased. Last year I made about half that. This year I was out of work in January, worked a couple months for a doctors office, and that ended fast when the doctor had to have surgery.
Everyone seems to be trying some sort of side hustle. I know a friend who is trying to do a version of flipping houses by paying back taxes on a home that someone foreclosed on. Another friend does Amway. Another does affiliate marketing. Another delivers pizzas. My wife crochets hat orders, but mostly people beg her to make them for free. I am marketing CBD oil and a natural pain reliever, and hoping to crack the success-from-home-blogging niche. It seems millions of us are in this boat. The only known key to success for sure is to stick with it. Blog every day, invite people to look at your business every day, do a podcast every day, and do not be focused on results or how much you are making.
The purpose of this post is first, know you are not alone. It’s lonely at the top, but it’s also lonely in the slop. When life throws you into the pit, and you get betrayed and back-stabbed and left for dead, it can be isolating too. You will hear well-meaning cliches and Hallmark mantras, but they are empty and won’t bring much comfort. There will be those who analyze you to death, and want to make you regret you didn’t come to them for advice 5 years earlier so they could have spared you from your misery.
We need humanity back in the humans. Even the best of intentions will blow up in our face sometimes, but I think that this side of heaven, things are hard on purpose. If life were easy, we couldn’t grow or develop character. We get spoiled and sulk when things are just handed to us. Things don’t work out on purpose, but eventually if we don’t quit we get back from whatever detour we landed on.
Back in high school, I took a creative writing course. I wanted to write. I was meant to be a writer.
And I took a detour as a Pharmacist.
And now it looks like I am right back where I had always wanted to be.
And maybe you won’t land back on your feet quite so easily either, but perhaps when you land you will be pointed in a different direction than you expected. It might be exactly the path you would have loved to travel down if you had the courage to go there yourself.