Eyes wider than before

Hello fellow.. followers? Wow, that was awful.

So I decided to take a few days away from the internet and my beloved Mac (I know, those who know me well know that I am OBSESSED with Machiavelli - no, not Niccolo Machiavelli the Italian philosopher. Although come to think of it, Machiavelli (my Mac) is pretty clever. And philosophical. And everything in between - now you can see why I needed a few days away from this crazy obsession).

I've been in this really strange funk for a while. One I've had a hard time pulling myself out of. It's been a mixture of things, but I think one of the predominant factors leading to this funk was the lack of direction I've had in terms of practically everything.

The months leading up to my graduation, I had certain thoughts about how the following months would turn out. I thought that after University ended, and after the whole "relaxation period" was over that I would find a good job within the field of Psychology, and things would just roll out after that. I knew I was entering the job market at an awful, awful, awful (times infinity) time, smack down in the recession and costing cuts. I knew that people would rather take on others, more experienced, who had been in similar working roles before so that they don't have to spend money training newbies. It makes sense and everything, but there used to be a time when graduates would get priority for certain jobs and now it's just so awful. What makes it worse is that I've come across some scams as well - and believe me, when you're THAT desperate to find employment, you get happy when you get a response after the amount of effort and time you spend on-line - you get really happy when someone takes an interest in your CV. It is so annoying and almost makes you feel a little less trusting towards posting your CV on the more legit websites.

Anyway, I think I've been pushing myself far too much in trying to find a job, and not really seeing whether it's something I want to do. It's not that I am being picky, because I have been to every single one of my interviews, be it in a Financial company or something more in my forte like a Children's Charity, I've done the best I could in all. Over the last couple of months however, I decided to narrow my interests into the areas I knew I could do well in, and actually have knowledge on. I started to concentrate on the experiences I've had, rather than go towards something brand new in this miserable recession, and settled on applying in that manner. It came to my attention however that I was having little luck in that area, but I continued to complete at least five applications by the end of each day, more if I was quicker. After months of sticking to the same routine and finding myself digging a deeper hole with each application and becoming so formulaic with the way I was writing, I realised I was going in circles. I had over 40 different covering letters, and similar amounts of CV's to accompany them. My heart wasn't in what I was doing everyday, as it became a part of my daily routine - something I had a timetable for automatically and did without fail every day, and by the end of it I would just copy paste several of my pre-written statements. I found myself however, spending a lot of time on very few applications for jobs I really wanted. Those were the ones I felt most satisfied with.

A few days ago it dawned on me that I was just heartlessly doing things because I had to. I had to find a job, because it's logically the next big thing to go on to once graduation was over and done with. It's one of those pre-set plans for mostly everyone. It was mine, and I wanted to live up to it as well. Six months later, a whole lot of job interviews, rejections and uncountable applications later, I'm still unemployed. I blamed most of this on the recession and the uncertainty it bought with it, but at some point I had to stop and think. I had to reassess where I was going with everything and realised that I had a part to play in the funk I was in.

After a lot of thought, I decided to take a few days off from this insane routine. I had to spend time with myself and sit quietly and understand what I was doing. It was really important for me to be away from technology, annoying applications and everything in between and gain some perspective on how I got into such a little spiral. Obviously I didn't expect to have a breakthrough magical moment like they do in the movies, but I did come out feeling a little less hazy and crazy. I understood that I have to change a lot of my ways in order to move forward, not only in the job world but otherwise too, I need to constantly remind myself where my feet are and where my head is, without letting it get too messy.

Perhaps I won't find the perfect job, or the perfect situation. But I'm okay with that. I think what I've found most essential is knowing when to stop and just "going with the flow" without getting too stressed. Oh, and obviously listening to Gandalf's wise words of "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us" (Instead of wasting it).

Alas readers (what else can I call you people? I'm out of creative words, unless you want to see some more of that great alliteration), I'm leaving you with a song.