Am I Successful?

So, having just graduated from college, I am now working at a beer/cigarette convenience store and a pizza place. Am I successful? Yes.

While my ultimate goal is to go to the University of Texas in Austin and get my MA (maybe PhD) in Arabic, I have no problem making just enough money to survive and pay off my modest debts. Why? Because I finally have time to read some goddamn books.

Both of my jobs consist of me sitting at a counter, handling money and answering a phone once in a while. The rest of my time is blissfully free. While I don't have money to maintain the lifestyle that I had gotten so accustomed to during my undergraduate university years, I also didn't really like that lifestyle anyway. I now divide my time between work, hanging out with people, and reading and studying Arabic and a little German. No more fake news articles to translate, no more journal entries that start and end with, "I did homework," and no more GECs. I finally feel like I'm living life how it's most often lived. Working, subsisting, creating, recreating... on my own terms.

So I'm more than happy to make single digits an hour, because I know that in a year I'll be preparing to move and to undertake the most difficult period of my academic career. As for now, I'm not ready to leave Columbus yet. I have unfinished projects and people I'm not done hanging out with yet.