Everyone has been fired from at least one job in there life. If you haven't yet then all I can say is a) it's coming or b) you're a lucky bastard. I just experienced this for the first time in my life. I sit here listening to 21 Pilots (Regional at Best is a fantastic album and everyone should listen to it right now) and all I know is that I feel like shit. Caring about things can be really hard when you are told that you're not good enough for something. It hits you right in the gut and it feels like swallowing is impossible. Our society has convinced us all that our worth is tied to the ability to find a job and work until we're too exhausted to keep going. There is an unspoken agreement about this concept, and somewhere along the line we convinced ourselves that this is the obvious way of the world. I am caught in an in-between at the moment because I understand how important it is to make money. You cannot accomplish goals of travel, a certain level of satisfaction or even eat what you love unless you have a source of income. I want that money so much, and I am willing to work my ass off to get what I want. However I have a voice in the back of my head that is continuously pounding at me saying "this is fucked up, you should be able to be happy without this, why are you so fucking depressed?"
And honestly I want to know why.
Yes, going to a therapist helps you figure out why you're upset and they can give you fantastic advice on ways to manage your emotions and organize them into somewhat productive activities. Yoga helps you feel better psychically, as does any exercise and I love working out when I want to feel good. Even drinking a glass of wine and watching some stupid show on Netflix makes the end of a night go by faster so that you can just sleep. But what I want more then anything right now, is to figure out how to reach actual contentment without relying on outside expectations or stimulus. I wish I had the answers to this readily available. I think about it all the time, especially when I sit there trying to decide whether I should go back to school, try for a corporate job, or try to be a barista again.
What do I do with my life?
It's so stupid, a very stupid little question and it is driving thousands of us insane as we graduate college and reality hits us. There is no one standing outside the graduation ceremony waiting to hand us our dream job. The last 5 years have been hell for recent graduates, and even people finishing with Masters and Phd's are accepting entry level positions that pay dirt compared to their credentials. The fact that we are on our own is such a terrifying prospect that the percentage of people 18-25 joining the military in 2013 was ~44,000 (ijreview maps showing numbers/ regions per thousand). The other day my father called to ask that I remember that I am capable of so much more and begged me not to zone out and join the military. I was so taken aback by his request (it is very out of character for him to show that much emotion) that I started crying when he hung up.
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| Personal enlisted by region ages 18-24, 2013 |
I have no answers for the questions above and my future prospects scare the crap out of me. I spend every day applying to at least 3-5 jobs, writing cover letters and making phone calls, I've been doing this for almost 8 months now and even though I've worked those part time jobs in the middle I am so obsessed with landing the one job, the money maker, that somewhere along the way I started believing I wasn't worth it. Right now I have trouble truly believing that I am a useful member of society. The thought merely numbs me, even as I continue chugging along hoping without actual hope that someone else will validate my existence and my worth in this world.
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