Your Word is Your Wand

I know if you are having an arduous week, that you may want to declare something like, "2021 sucks so far."  But if you don't mind some advice from your friendly 'net neighbor, here is a mantra you can use for 2021:  My word is my wand.

If you have had any type of conversation with me, then you know that my belief system is that anything I say or do matters and contributes to my experience of life.  I believe this is true for all of us.  And so when I complain, things seem to get worse. 

Rationally, I know that there is not good luck or bad luck unless you truly believe there is or you empower an object with such.  My mother was like that too.  A few times during this job hunt, I have posted excitedly that maybe I was about to get my big break.  Then, it turns out, not so much with a big break.  Only another rejection.

I have had such a difficult time job-hunting this century that I asked a friend of mine if she thought my last job, which was for a company and people to whom I was devoted even though I didn't make enough money to support myself, was an anomaly.  Maybe thinking I deserved any kind of a job was a stretch?  

From 2013 to 2016, right after I got my first MA degree, I could not get a job.  No matter what I did.  I was told I was overqualified, underqualified, not this enough, not that enough. Because of all this rejection, or maybe even as a defense mechanism, I firmly believed that I was not "supposed" to have a job and that it fell to me to use my skills to help people in order to support myself. I never wanted to do that.  I wanted to help people, yes, but I never wanted to have my own business.  And so I went from struggling to find a job to struggling to have a business.  That I didn't even want.

Then at the end of 2016, my cat died, a few clients got mad at me at the same time, and then my former boss found me on CareerBuilder, a website I had not been on in years.  She sent me an email that I almost deleted, before deciding to reply.  That led to a job I had until March of 2020. 

And since then, every single time I have landed an interview, or sometimes a second or even a third interview, though I lacked the confidence to believe I would get the job, a part of me really wanted to believe whatever it was the recruiters told me before the interview.  

And every single one of these I-may-have-a-job incidents has ended the same way:  Choose your favorite:

You don't have this skill, and we need that. 

You're overqualified, you wouldn't want to waste your time here.  

We have decided to go in a different direction.

We have chosen a more qualified candidate.

You're not good enough, Erica.  You suck.

Okay, the last two lines were mine. No one has said that to me.  But that is what I am hearing.  It is so hard for me to get a job.  Maybe it's this hard for everyone, especially in a pandemic, but all I know is my experience.  I'm almost 48. That's my early-late-forties.  As Liza Minnelli said in Arthur, "I'm a wonderful person!"  I think I'm a hard worker. I know I'm a devoted person.  I'm a good friend.  I have a BA and two MAs only, because I love analyzing the heck out of written material  I'm great with cats.  I'm funny.  I like to help people.

But I cannot get a damn job.

End of rant.  

Yes, I will get a job at some point.  My last job was not an anomaly.  Something will come to me if I keep going.  Many others have it worse in this pandemic.  I can get through this.  I have been okay.  I will continue to be okay.

Maybe tomorrow, I'll feel a little better than okay.

Please enjoy this picture of my partially blind cuddle bug with large murder mittens, Little Miss Sally, in her pajamas. 

Recommendation of the Day:  Your Word is Your Wand, by Florence Scovel Shinn