I have been job hunting for months. It sucks. Everything is moving so slowly. Many word-adjacent industries (writing, publishing, journalism, etc) are in a hiring freeze, and even those that aren’t are hiring slowly and cautiously. I know all these things, and I was somewhat ready for the long slog, but it still just sucks.
What I didn’t know going in, was how much of an internal battle I would be facing. Job hunting now comes with its own existential crisis attached, what I think of as “future-fatigue”. The world has changed dramatically in the last six months. On a macro level, I can’t look at international jobs, because as an American I can’t travel. On a micro level, I’ve been watching videos of people dancing, and crying because I miss touching people. Add on to the pandemic stress the fact that we’re facing a nation-defining election, we’re finally sort of reckoning with our racist history and ICE is training a vigilante army. It’s a lot.
Because of this, I have no idea what our country or our world will look like in 2021. No idea.
This unknown is what leads us into future-fatigue. Every part of job searching is future facing. When, like me, you’re trying to move, so much of the work is imagining “what would my life look like if I got this job? In this city? With this salary?” In our current world, where we don’t know which cities will be hardest hit next month, that kind of imagining becomes exhausting. How do I plan my life when the ground underneath my feet is constantly shifting?
I wish I had an answer.
There is a temptation, I’ve found, to hide out in the familiar. To cease all movement and say “I can just pick-up when this is over”. But as this grinds on, “when this is over” becomes less certain. Now I find myself feeling like I have to move forward, I have to jump on every opportunity, I need to maintain this sense of urgency — as if my own sense of urgency can somehow get the world moving again.
It’s hard to feel so small.
I cringed a little as I wrote that. What a privileged life I’ve led, that I have never before felt at the mercy of world events. I’ve never had to radically change my plans, readjust my expectations, or shift the timelines on my goals because of decisions made by people in power. I’ve never felt this helpless before.
To be honest, I can’t think too hard about the next few years without spiraling a little bit. Will we still be quarantined in 2021? Will it be three years until my next kiss? Will we be facing four more years of Tr*mp? I try not to think about it, but then how can you plan for a future you won’t even let yourself imagine?
God, I wish I knew.
So much of me wants to throw myself on the floor and cry about how unfair it is, how I’m twenty four and these are supposed to be my most fun years, how I’m missing out on so much career advancement, how I’ll never meet the people I could have met during this time. My rational side responds that there are people all over the world, and here in the US, who live under the weight of existential fear all the time, wondering what next year will look like, wondering if they’ll be alive to see it. I am not special.
Am I selfish for being so concerned with my own petty problems? With my salary expectations and cover letters? There’s so many things to focus on right now, so many major problems to be discussed and solved, am I wrong for taking my energy away from those fights to fill out yet another job history form?
I am exhausted, and yet I know there are others so much more tired than me. People who’ve worked through this pandemic in fear, people who have been fighting the good fight against racial inequality for generations to no avail, people all over the world faced with long periods of instability and uncertainty.
I seriously just — what is the answer? How do we balance the individual and the collective in this moment? (wear a mask, for the love of God I don’t mean individualism like that) How do we balance knowing everything that’s going on, with the need to retain our sanity? How do we balance optimism and pragmatism?
How do I plan for the future, when I have no idea what it will look like?
Usually this is the part of an article where the author says “well, let me tell you”. But jokes! I’m not that kind of author and I would be lying if I said I had an answer about this. I’m genuinely attempting to figure out how I can best interact with the world right now. I don’t even really know why I wrote this, except to attempt to put into words a conversation that I’ve had over and over again with friends and family over the last few months. Maybe it’ll resonate with you, maybe it won’t.
Onward, I guess.
If you have thoughts, answers, job openings, or questions that you’d like to share, feel free to leave a comment, hmu on social or email me at gracethieme@gmail.com
I hope you’re all doing ok, and as always, thanks so much for being here.
xoxo,
