From the desk

Finding a suitable job in this tough economy is more than formidable — it is harder than a 4-year-old trying to play Samuel Barber’s Cello Concerto in A minor. The instrument would eventually overpower the toddler, and his grubby, little hands would never be able to keep up with the advanced movements. Sounds just like the job market, right?

Despite the feelings of complete destitution and abandonment flittering across all of our minds as we search for something in our own field of study, the Bureau of Labor Statistics gives just one gleaming ray of hope to us all — the unemployment rate has been steadily decreasing since 2010, now at a nearly acceptable 7.8 percent.

Still, the apprehension of leaving college and entering the “adult” world of big business and professional titles is unnervingly difficult.

We have heard it more often than our father’s story about how he and his brothers used to shoot each other with BB guns when they were kids, but you cannot get a job without experience, and you cannot get experience without a job — a circular-reasoning nightmare that even Freddy Krueger would dread to enter.

We bite the bullet of minimal experience and pray that enough doors open to escape this house of horrors before Krueger grabs our coat tails and drags us back under for another round.

Volunteering works for some people, but those of us who are eventually going into some sort of medical field probably would find it impossible for someone to voluntarily be our guinea pig in electroconvulsive therapy.

Internships work, too, if we are able to devote multiple hours a week working at something where we will not make a dime and still have to show up to that Seven-Eleven job five days a week with a bright smile on our faces to pay our bills. At least at the convenience store there is the possibility of free slushies.

But, in our day and age, even having the opportunity to intern at a non-paying employment position is a blessing. Having that and being able to work at some job beneath our education to help pay the bills is even better.

Sometimes, we need to remember that nothing in life, not even the ability to work in order to survive, is guaranteed to us. Putting in our dues and working from the ground up is something that we all have to do to get to where we need to go.

Pray that your fingers move fast enough to keep up with your concerto and that the weight of the cello does not overpower you. After all, you cannot make music in your profession without first practicing your scales.