Time. I am a twenty-three-year-old professional woman beginning my career and find myself contemplating the conflicting dynamic of personal and professional time. What concerns me is the conflict between youth and beauty, and professional credibility. Unfortunately, I continue to discover I am not alone in these thoughts about time.
My friends and I find ourselves discussing the present and future often; how best to spend our time, what’s next for us, and how fast things have started to move since graduation. However there seems to be a strong distinction between mine and my girlfriend’s relationship with time, compared to that of my male friends.
Do we really need to subscribe to this type of imposed deadlines?
As women, we are all aware of the ticking clock.
We know the effects of aging on our beauty, the decreasing of energy with passing time, and the limits of our biological clock. Ultimately, our personal lives are defined by these categories that seem to reach their peak in our twenties. We strive to time our personal goals perfectly depending on the supposed depletion of our ability to conceive, our beauty, and our energy.
This is directly at odds with the clock that moves in reverse for our abilities as professionals. Experience, education, and developing leadership skills are all monumental time investments. For any gender, personal and professional lives are a hard balance to strike. For women, they appear to be directly at odds with each other.
I have been contemplating this dynamic with time since I started my professional career. I realized that there is a looming anxiety we as females feel that calls into question every small decision that we make in our lives. This anxiety is not helpful nor necessary.
I realize I do not need to subscribe to artificial deadlines and deep-rooted gender stereotypes in order to be conscientious.
I remind myself regularly that I am on my own unique timeline, and that my goals are ever changing. Ultimately, that peace of mind is what allows me to enjoy every second.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Robyn Kiernan
Data Engineering Analyst
My name is Robyn Kiernan, and I am a Rutgers Business School graduate working at Johnson and Johnson as a Data Engineer. I’ve been working for my team for over a year and a half as an intern, but upon graduating in May I began working with the data standards team on two major SAP implementation initiatives. I am keenly aware of current events in politics and the economy, and have seen how the two have a direct effect in the field of business, especially in Supply Chain. I enjoy the idea of finding new and improved processes for a business, as well as ingraining new green initiatives since sustainability is a passion of mine. In my free time I lift weights, grow my financial literacy skills, and learn about ethics and philosophy. I enjoy the outdoors and meditation, and have a love for movies and history.
