Where Can I Find a Pearl Necklace?

The weeks leading up to my graduation from graduate school I was consistently asked what I planned on doing after graduation. I was not the student who missed class early in the semester to go to an interview. Nor was I the student who had a full-time job to return to after graduation. I did not have much of a plan. Not having a plan did not bother me too much, nor did it seem to bother anyone I told. Everyone I confessed my lack of plans to seemed to say the same thing, “That’s fine. ‘The world is your oyster!’ Do whatever you want! You have so many options.”

The world is your oyster. The world is your oyster? Every time someone reassured my uncertain future by spouting off this idiom I would simply pause, smile, and say thank you, not really understanding what was just said. I gave the ever-popular adage a lot of thought. I even googled the saying, hoping to gain some insight. After thought and some research I concluded that I was simply being told that I have a lot of options to work with and I can make something as great as a pearl. That is assuming that in the phrase I am the oyster. So maybe it actually means that I will have pearls waiting for me to find. The meaning is still a little murky to me. Clearly.

Although I cannot concisely say what The world is your oyster means, I feel like I am at another crossroads in life where this adage could be said to me with enthusiasm. But it is not. Somehow the world is only my oyster when I am on the brink of graduating. I guess being laid off from a job does not conjure up the idea that there is a lot of opportunity for pearls in my life. I have not had the encouragement to take my time to find my pearls in this world. Instead, the response from others to not having a plan for the upcoming year has been to give dozens of suggestions of possible employers. I appreciate the advice and the career ideas, but what happened to searching for that pearl?

It seems that many in the working world leave the quest for pearls to those who just walked off campus. Somewhere along the road idealism is lost, and the popular thing to do is to go after the realities of paying the bills and having a solid resume. Oddly enough, though, the oyster has gotten bigger since I graduated. Sadly, the bigger my oyster has become the more dilemmas it has caused. Maybe I am becoming one of the folks in the working world who abandons the search for the pearls because it becomes too complicated. In some ways I would like to be the person who has one track, and plans on maintaining the course until retirement. Sometimes fewer opportunities look good because it makes the crossroads a simple intersection, instead of a junction of highways.

One of my friends and I recently spoke of the dilemma of the world being our oyster. Obviously, this is a conversation that would appall many – how dare two young women have such disregard for the opportunities presented to them! At the risk of seeming irreverent towards the feminists who dreamt of a day when women would have so many open doors, my friend and I discussed the internal pressure of making the right decision when there are many paths to follow. Sometimes it feels like there are almost too many options.

Albeit many paths, I have decided to still go for the oyster. I like pearls. I have been thinking, though, what if the person who coined The world is your oyster did not intend for it to be used as a positive adage what is to come in life? Maybe the originator of this saying shucked oysters for a living and knew that there are a lot of oysters out there, but only some produce pearls. If my fictional history of this saying is true, it would be kind of intimidating to hear as a recent graduate, but I feel like it would make my career feel more like an adventure of trying to find a pearl, instead of feeling like there is pressure to make certain that everything molds into the perfect pearl.