The Start of a Jobsearch Journal
Career Anxiety — We all kinda have them
Hi.
How do I begin this? I made this post and this publication purely for personal documentation and pleasure. This is a huge thing for me because I discovered have career anxiety, so I want a place to jot down my journey and possibly strike a chord with others who are bumbling twenty-somethings like me.
What the f*ck is career anxiety?
I define career anxiety as the irrational fear of the working world. Whether you are in it or not, there is a constant anxiety of:
- not being able to decide or choose what you want to do in life
- feeling like an imposter while searching for a job or in your current job
- your whole life will end up as a waste if you chose the wrong thing or lost your job right now
- you are just one screw up away from ruining your life forever
The anxiety looms over you whenever you have to think about the daunting question, “What should I do with my life for work?”
Working technically constitutes one-third of our lives, the other third is sleeping, and the rest of your life fits into that last third. That’s all. In your life, these three thirds and that’s it.
Now you see why career anxiety is a thing?
For most people, they say I overthink and you just have to find a job first. But it’s not anxiety if it’s not an irrational fear. I’m constantly on edge where should I venture into and home in on, and worry that I’ll make the wrong choice or not finding the “right” place.
We all kinda have it
But I don’t think I’m special in this regard. I just overthink this more than a sane person would.
We all want a place to belong, where our strengths can be shown and valued, where we have supportive and helpful colleagues, where we can earn a decent amount of money that increases as we progress, and to serve the world in positive ways. We all want to fulfill all these pillars of fulfilling work.
Even as not an employee, then as an entrepreneur, we want to create a company that can plug a need in the world, impact, and make a buttload of cash doing it and feed the economic engine to lead amazing lives.
But the fact of the matter is that the work we find will be imperfect. We can’t fulfill all our wishlist of ideal employment, and businesses fail all the time. Things are hard, homes are expensive, income gap is widening, every dollar is stretched thinner and thinner.
Wait…how did we get here again?
Sorry, I got ahead of myself there. What was I saying again?
Right. This publication is about one man’s search for a job out there and the psychology and journey throughout that.
I’ll see you on the other side.
Jerry
