Reminding Yourself to Stay Positive During the Job Search

My semester as an adjunct teaching five English classes is over; I am on vacation, and my main task now is to find a  full-time job. Never in my life have I had such a hard time finding a job, but, then again, this is different. This time, I am seeking a job with a company where I will start my career and hopefully be employed for a long period of time.

However, getting your foot in the door for a professional position is difficult, and it is easy to get discouraged--especially when you have student loan payments looming and living expenses to consider. At times, the task seems impossible, especially when you don't regularly get responses on your resume, or if, when you do, and you go on interviews, they decide to "pass on you" for someone with more experience or who more closely meets their needs in some vague, undisclosed way. Then you get desperate and end up settling for a part-time job or multiple part-time jobs to try to make ends meet, and you start to feel that you have been the victim of a huge lie...

After all, the unemployment rate of recent college graduates between the ages of 22 and 27 in 2013 was 5.6%, and "more than half" of those "22-year-old degree holders" who found jobs found ones where they didn't need a college diploma. When you are stuck in this sort of situation, you start second-guessing yourself and all of the decisions that you made that led you to this point in your life. You think about your options, and you only grow more discouraged, as you are so close that you can see your goal, but you can't attain it, and it is there teasing you, just out of your grasp. 

This is when it is important to remind yourself that, in spite of your current situation, it is worth all of the hard work, and, as a few quick Google searches will prove, the sort of success that many people go to college to attain is overwhelmingly not a lie for most people. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2013, people with a bachelor's degree or higher had an unemployment rate of 4% or less and a median weekly earning of $1,108 or more. This is in contrast to people with a high school diploma, who had an unemployment rate of 7.5% and a median weekly earning of $651. That is a very clear difference, and with every successive degree that you earn, the income only increases, and thus, going to school is indeed worth it, even when you take into account student loan debt.

According to CNN Money, student loan debt averaged $29,000 in 2013. Based on an income of $1,108 a week, on a standard repayment plan, a single taxpayer with $29,000 in loans would pay $242 a month (in the state of Ohio) towards their student loans over 120 months (Repayment Estimator at studentloans.gov). If you consider that, according to the Federal Reserve, the lifetime earnings of a college graduate is worth $830,000 more than that of a high school graduate, even if your loans are $100,000, you will earn substantially more money that you would have likely earned if you not going to college (Forbes). The overall financial reward for going is worth the cost of it, and worth the continued effort to find a job that will put you on the positive side of these statistics.

The key, I believe, is to keep trying. Do research and figure out what you are doing wrong. Find all the jobs that you seem remotely qualified to do, and apply for them all. Adjust your resume and write a new cover letter for each new position. Use all of the job boards, but also apply directly through companies' websites. Ask your friends and your friends' friends to see if where they are working is hiring, and if they have any jobs like what you are qualified to do. It only takes one success application and interview process--you just have to make sure that you are in the right place at the right time. And that takes a lot of work, and a lot of applications.

If you are creative, and persistent, eventually you will find the right job. If you stay positive, work hard, and attempt to learn from your mistakes, you will more likely be successful. Of course, that is easier said that done--as I will be the first to admit--but, just like everything else, having the right attitude takes effort too.

Always on My Mind

Searching for a job is never an easy task, especially when you are searching for a career. Most people--or, rather, many people, at any rate--go to college and study a particular field in order to establish a career in that field. I started out studying journalism and then made the switch to English, but the goal has always been to establish a career as a writer, as I have a natural affinity for writing and I do it all the time anyway. I have always been able to adapt to new styles and improve my writing with every class that I have taken, and I enjoy talking about it and influencing others to become better at it. This is probably why I have gotten into teaching, which is--or, at least, can be--an honorable profession. I am relatively new at it, and I still have a lot to learn, but it is something I can see myself doing.

However, it would not be honest of me if I said that it was my main goal, since my true desire is to be a professional writer. That is not to say that I don't like teaching, or that I wouldn't do it as a professional, it just means that I have the passion, and indeed, the determination, to be a professional writer, and I intend to follow through with that goal until I reach a point where I truly cannot move forward.

If I had been more diligent when I was younger, and had not let outside influences distract me and turn me away from my goal, I would be further ahead now. As a student journalist, I was published weekly in the entertainment pull-out of my (award-winning) college newspaper. After my first semester as a correspondent, I was promoted to entertainment reporter, and then had some problems in my personal life that distracted me from my career goals, and the semester after I became a reporter, I was back to correspondent again. It was no failing on my part as a writer, but I felt like I had failed. Instead of working through my problems and not giving up, and pushing through the hard times and focusing on school and working as a student journalist, I took a break. Not because I didn't want to continue working towards my goal, but because I needed time to get my life together before I continued on my path.

Out in the "real world," I worked and struggled to make ends meet, trying to figure out how to make the best of life. During this time, I met my wife, spent a couple years in Chicago, and reaffirmed what I had known all along: being a writer is a part of my identity. I went back to school, older, more mature, and more determined than ever. Changing my major to English, I not only graduated, but ended up going on to grad school, working the whole time, balancing my personal life, my school work, and a job, and I struggled, but the kind of struggling that makes a person stronger and more capable of succeeding, because, even when it was difficult, I didn't crack and give in to the pressure, I continued working and pushing, and, even when I didn't want to or didn't think I could do it, I did it anyway. From my effort, based on my writing skills, I was selected as a graduate assistant, and now I have gotten some real professional experience as a college instructor and am one creative writing workshop away from a master's degree, and I am at a crossroads.  

There are many different possible directions but only one direction to go, and I have to decide what is best for me--but not only me, but also my wife, and my future family. While, in many ways I am further ahead than I was five years ago, all my effort is moot unless I can transform those personal and professional developments into something concrete. I don't need to be rich, but I do need to meet my needs, and life isn't cheap.  I need to earn enough money to not only cover my basic living expenses, but also my student loans, and my debt--and not just mine, but also my wife's. I feel stuck, because I believe that I owe it to myself and to the work that I have accomplished so far to pursue a career in the area that I have chosen to study. I have been offered a part-time teaching position at my school, and I would happily accept it, but I realistically need a better paying job in order not to slide further into debt and poverty. I might be able to subsist with the part-time position if I can find a second part-time teaching position in the area, but I am still not that experienced as an instructor, and my main goal is to become a professional writer.

Even though I will shortly have a master's degree, and I have taught writing, and have written for a widely distributed publication (even though it is a student-run newspaper, it still has a wider circulation than many small town newspapers), I have no professional-level writing experience, and there doesn't seem to be any entry level writing positions available (anywhere). Every position I see needs at least 2-3 years of professional experience. Even though (I believe) I am fully capable of doing many of these jobs,  and, even of the ones that I seem to meet the criteria that are listed, the employers don't seem to want to give me a chance even if I might be more highly skilled than someone with more experience. 

If I can't convince an employer to hire me full time, I need to make the best of what I can get, and work to achieve my goal, somehow. I will take the part-time teaching position(s) and at the same time devote myself to freelance writing and getting published. I will work towards becoming a better, more experienced writer and instructor, and will continue working towards my goal, and hopefully earn enough money to subsist. 

It's either that, or just give up on trying to become a writer and/or an instructor, and just take whatever best-paying job I can get.

Somehow, I can't bring myself to do that. Not yet. Not until I know that the gates are closed, and that no amount of effort will help me get passed it. Of course, I will probably be dead before that happens.

Giving in to Insecurities and Paranoia, or Finding Peace

"He gazed up at the enormous face.  Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark mustache.  O cruel, needless misunderstanding!  O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast!  Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose.  But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished.  He had won the victory over himself.  He loved Big Brother."--George Orwell, 1984

Through my schooling, I have begun to realize that there is no objective Truth--at least not in the way that most people understand it--and that all truths are others' narratives where they seek to understand life and the ways of the universe, and perhaps some are closer than others to some sliver of understanding.  I have realized, to some extent, that it is absurd that we continue to live by others' narrow conceptions of life while feeling miserable and powerless to do anything for ourselves because everything seems so far out of our control.

But that lack of control is an illusion, it is a fundamental part of the status quo--that subjective truth that the major lives by--because it is how social order is maintained.  If people realized that truth is malleable--that they are living by others' conceptions of life and not their own, and that they can create their own conception of living based around their needs and not others'--they would realize that it is possible to change their lives and to live the way they choose.  

Of course, it is not as easy as all that.  The status quo has a powerful effect on people, feeding them lies about morality and nature, feeding them things to desire in order to distract them from their actual desires, making them powerless, by choice, to make any significant changes.  The shackles are there because we place them on ourselves.  

In spite of these shackles, there are changes that need to be made.  Instead of each going off in our own direction, however, we should work together to create our own conception of the status quo, and bring about a new, more encompassing version of the social contract, one that leaves no one out of it. We need to strike a balance between our individual needs and social needs, and not allow anyone to have too much authority over either.

Otherwise, we are going to destroy ourselves, or let ourselves be destroyed.

Somebody is going to attempt to create change, and instead of meaningful change, they are going to create chaos and further erode our freedoms.  Your finger might not be on the trigger, but if you sit by and idly watch as everything unfolds around you, your complacency allows that trigger to be pulled, and you are every much as deserving the blame as the person actually pulling it, because you did nothing to stop it.  If more people don't stand up and fight for what they believe, and what they really believe and not what they have been lead to believe, then it will be too late.

It might already be too late.  We might just be trapped in a cycle that will only be increasingly more difficult to escape  The void might already be below us, and all we have to do is look down to realize that we are already falling into emptiness...

But wait...  Is that merely me projecting my own insecurities, my own conception of reality?  Are things really that way, or am I just paranoid, insecure, and feeling betrayed by my intelligence?  

Even though I have worked hard, and struggled, but never-the-less supposedly succeeded in doing what I was told would help me get a better job and earn a living, and pay off my bills, buy a house, a car, etc., pursuing "the American Dream", it has gotten me none of those things, so far, and I only seem to be getting further and further away from them.

It has all seemed to turn out to be a lie that has been perpetuated so that more people would go to college, so the administrations, filled with people with business degrees, could justify their large salaries and the turning of the institutions of learning into for-profit businesses that feed off of government-sponsored student loans, putting those who they are seeking to control, under control, since being in debt places limitations on you that are hard to get past.

It doesn't seem like I am projecting, but then again, a crazy person supposedly doesn't know he is crazy.  Maybe I am truly crazy and out of line, and just need to accept reality as it is and not as I think it should be.

Maybe, like Winston Smith, I just need to accept that there are forces that are more powerful than me, accept my powerlessness and their power over me, and just move forward, and take whatever job, and do it, and do it, and do it, until I can't even remember what the hell my problem was in the first place. 

Or maybe the zombie apocalypse is already happening, and most people have already lost and the only real way to survive is to think for yourself.  Maybe that means that you will never succeed in their conception of the world, but maybe that is okay.

Maybe it is okay to have a different value system--one that is predicated on empathy and sound judgment rather than on just following what you are supposed to do unquestioningly.  Maybe true freedom is a state of mind, and that you can break free from the shackles and live the way that you wish to live, regardless of what it seems like everyone else around you is doing.  Maybe it is all about how you perceive reality, rather than how reality is.  Maybe you do have control over it, and by selecting a better narrative, you can have a better life.

Perhaps you do need a job to survive in the world, but that job doesn't have to be your life.  It doesn't have to control you, and you don't have to place your soul on the altar of some artificial value system.  Maybe the best thing to do is to find a job that allows you to have a balance between your life, and your job function, so that you can dedicate yourself to that job function when you are performing it, and leave it behind at the end of the day.  Perhaps, it is all about finding a balance and finding a state of mind that allows you to be at peace with yourself and the world around you.  Maybe that is maturity.

The real battle isn't you versus others, you vs. society, you vs. sin, you vs. whatever other outside force that may or may not be real, but you vs. yourself.

Forward Motion

Tonight I am starting my second to last class that I need for my master's degree, and I must say that I am looking forward to it.  While it is going to be a rush--a three credit hour class condensed into three weeks--it is with one of my favorite professors at Akron.  She is intelligent and a difficult grader; her classes are fun and the information and the ideas are relevant.  The class is in Digital Humanities, which is a growing field, and I am sure the people who are studying it are just scratching the surface at the nearly endless ways that technology can shape the way we digest and communicate information.  

I am hoping the class will help me in my own pursuits as I am attempting to make my own digital footprint.  If not, it is certainly a topic that interests me, which will help me get through it.  It was the only 600-level course offered over the summer, so if I wanted to graduate in August, I had no choice but to take it.  Thankfully, if the department is only going to offer one 600-level class, it is one that will be fun and interesting.

All mixed in with my finishing up school and my publishing pursuits is my search for a job.  I am honing my resume and hoping that I can get the type of job that I want--a writing/editing job in advertising, PR, or marketing--and not have to settle for whatever is available.  I feel my skill set and my experience, although not exactly that, makes me a good fit for such a position--I am hoping--as long as I can find something entry level.  While it sucks to have to start out at the bottom, I feel that I learn quickly and can quickly grow into a valuable employee.  In my experience, while writing as a skill is teachable, it is not something that is easily taught to everyone and I have a knack for it and have always excelled at it, as my schooling will at least show.

I don't think it's too much to ask for a position in the field I have studied, even though, I know, it probably is asking too much, given the current state of the job market and politics.  Maybe I am just disenfranchised, but I do know people at my education level and above who have had an extremely difficult time finding work in their fields--even though they did well in school, had good internships, and are generally smart and capable.  I would like to think it is a person's intrinsic skill set and those unteachable qualities, the drive and motivation to succeed at a task, that help one get a job--unfortunately, I know better.  While we are in the 21st century and things have come along way, there are still segments--small, albeit powerful segments--of society that legally discriminate against everyone else, because they can.

Maybe things aren't all that bad, I don't know.  Maybe I am angry and disenfranchised from having spent my entire adult life working hard and barely getting further than where I started.  Maybe it is my fault, but maybe not.  While the United States doesn't technically have a caste system, it seems more like upward mobility is a pipe dream, and the only hope you have is to get swallowed up by the current and pumped out into some forgotten part of the ocean where you get eaten by some giant mutant man-eating carp.

Things are definitely different now than when my parent's generation was coming up, and many of those differences are for the better.  However, there are still many that aren't.  And as much education as you can get, while it might make you a well-rounded person, it won't necessarily help you be the productive member of society that you are striving to be because you can only be the type of productive member of society that somebody who doesn't even know you decides that you are going to be because you aren't in their "class" or whatever.  This is different.  

Maybe people, myself included, are delusional--although I have done well academically, and I have always been in the highest percentiles on writing tests--but maybe the system is set up against people to move forward, because it doesn't benefit the people who are at the top, since all they want is more money and more power for themselves, and they have made caring about the community and society as a whole into a bad thing, and people who do are made into outcasts and weirdos.

I guess I will stick with the idea that I am delusional--because, after all, if no one else buys my narrative about myself, then who I am trying to fool?  Then again, if I buy it, and I have some level of credibility, isn't that the first step?  Isn't that...*gasps* confidence?

I guess that's why I try to immerse myself in the delusions that make me the happiest and not worrying about everything else--even though that is impossible.  Maybe it's like meditating.  Just pushing all of the bullshit out that doesn't matter, and just focusing on being... Maybe I should try meditating.  Maybe if I push out all my anxieties and the giant fucking disappointing material world, even for just a little while, it won't all seem so impossible, and I will be able to swim with the current, and go where life takes me, and make the best of it.  Maybe that's all one can really do in life.

I don't know, but, there is one thing that I am sure of right now, that this is not where I thought this was going to go when I first started writing this post.