Rec | IT'S NOT THAT SERIOUS

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^^THIS mantra saved my life. I feel for you and I feel equipped to answer this, it's been a main theme for me since I finished college about 8 years ago. No one prepares you for the absolute freefall of post grad. We're trained to work our ass off in school. Make ourselves appear well-rounded so we're marketable. We're able to gauge our progress against our peers in a tangible way. If we work hard, we'll have more opportunities – in school and in our career. We'll be free, happy, and financially comfortable. But it's not true. The tracks suddenly end and there's no clear path forward. It's a freedom that feels harrowing to most people (it did to me!) because no one is telling you what you should do, and that's so scary. And it's normal. A "career" is a product of various factors like opportunity, socioeconomic status, nepotism, and luck. Obviously there are exceptions, but that's a more common reality. I'm not saying it's pointless to get good grades and a college degree 🙃 but it's definitely not a guarantee to get your "dream job" or any job lol. I'm someone that worked hard to do everything "right" and it still took me 3+ years to get a job in the industry I studied. I worked retail and felt like a failure while I watched my friends climb up a ladder I couldn't even touch yet. When I finally landed a full-time marketing job I would find myself complaining a ton. About my boss or my random coworker or that I wasn't making the world a better place. The goal I'd been working to achieve my whole life was just a big, fat bummer! The bubble popped. I'd apply to jobs like a new start would save me. Then I got laid off. I landed a new gig that isn't perfect either. But I'm starting to realize it doesn't really matter. I've gone through cycles of feeling so oppressed by capitalism, so out of control of my own day-to-day, I developed severe depression and anxiety. My career-self and home-self split further and further apart because I didn't feel safe at work. But recently I've realized a big part of why I was miserable was because that's what I told myself. Maybe I needed to cycle through these feelings for some reason. I got on medication, did a yoga teacher training, and started doing little things throughout the day to make myself happy. When I stopped being so hard on myself to reach some stupid made-up standard I could finally exhale. It also really helped to spend time with people older than me. Now I make choices to improve my life even just 1%, like going home at lunch to spend a few minutes in the sun, cutting back on alcohol, saying no to things I didn't want to do. I'm enjoying the now more than ever before because I stopped trying to push myself to look for what's next. Now when I feel my anxiety creeping in at work (or anywhere) I just tell myself it's not that serious. 99% of the time it's true. You can not love your job and still be ridiculously happy. I've spent my life honoring all my emotions and not all of them deserve to be honored! Release and enjoy where you're at! The good and the bad, it's all temporary.

@babyoblivi0n

2d ago

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@valoorie

This was really reassuring, thank you so much for this♥️🫶

2d ago

Related Recs

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i got curious, changed my mindset, and worked hard

To be upfront, there are two things about myself that I love: 1. I'm tenacious AF 2. I am generally a positive person. I can handle almost any situtation, and I've had to learn to actually ask/demand more, so it's not always great. With that being said, I've wanted to die many times. I've experienced a lot of trauma. I have PTSD for years. Things got to a point where I knew if I didn't make really drastic changes I was going to die in some way- I simply could not go on how I was. The only thing that started to change things is when I started to learn more about myself and my reasons for doing things, being with certain people, getting into certain relationships. Part of my whole issue was that I had major trauma from childhood that I was actively avoiding. So many things happen to us as children, big and small, that we don't have the capacticy to deal with at the time. But as adults, we do. I remember the moment where things started shifting for me. It unlocked a hunger in me to dig more and more to why I was the way I was, and why I made the choices I did, in a really deep way. I became more action oriented in facing my shit, healing it, and discovering what I was like without it. It definitely wasn't easy, and it wasn't fun most of the time, but in reality the years I spent doing that are small compared to the life I have ahead of me. I'm a whole new person, but the parts of me that are true are the same. I became a more mature, loving, responsible version of myself. Hating your life is a sign something is not working. If you're unsure what that is, go inward. If you don't know where to start, think about the very next step. That's all you need to do. You're never locked in where you're at now forever. Don't know what you want to do for a career? Switch gears and do a completely different job. There is no timeline. You can literally do whatever you want. When I was doing a lot of the stressful inner work, I worked at animal shelters because I needed something so low stress. And I was mid 20's!!! No career goals in sight!!! Not even anywhere in my brain!!! If you're straight up hating something that is taking up most of your time... just quit it. Life is too short. Success to me is ease and grace. I want a peaceful, joyful life (most of the time). Sometimes to figure out what you need to do, you gotta take a giant step back. Or a step to the left. Or take a big roundabout. Or maybe a quest needs to be taken...

@mossyelfie

Dec 4, 2024

🙏

GRATITUDE

(I'm an old(ish). Thanks for considering this advice, given earnestly and with good intention, from experience.) Assuming the nature of your work isn't the source of the sadness? The gratitude you mentioned... Find ways to blow that up! Reflect on whether a past version of yourself would be proud of where you are now. The peace of boredom is a blessing. Seriously! A large amount of time spent as an adult is simply existing day-to-day. It gets repetitive, "there's nothing new under the sun." But also, stay as healthy as possible so you can do things outside of work. Make sure you are getting enough sleep, eating well. Don't smoke or vape anything. Maybe when the rhythm of your career settles in you will be able fully build out your whole life and work will only be a little part of it. The transition from school to career is temporary, trust that you'll get the balance right soon enough. IDK... I wouldn't know about long term careers, 😂 I have done a bunch of different stuff since I finished with school, none of it even close to what I went for. If I got bored or outgrew it or it got toxic, I moved on. No one *wants* to labor, right? Capitalism 🤬 sucks. But we *do* want to contribute to society, to our communities. Many types of work do that even under capitalism. So. Whatever you do, be grateful that you are contributing, but realize it doesn't define you, and learn how to be grateful for things that you might otherwise not be, like boredom. Gratitude is always the answer, especially to sadness; and comparison is a thief of joy.

@bingopajama

2d ago

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it's never too late to choose a new path

been having a lot of conversations with friends and family about people feeling stuck - stuck in the first job they got out of undergrad, stuck in an industry they don't care for, stuck in a place they don't feel connected to, stuck with a story they inherited not one they wrote for themselves. our society imposes on us the damaging narrative that we have until age 18 to choose the way in which we will be a productive member of society, and then until age 22 to acquire the skillset to do so, then we must contribute in that way until retirement. finding yourself having followed this path but feeling disconnected to your core values/desires/goals is not uncommon. this was me when i was 23, and to a lesser extent i am finding myself in a similar situation now as a recent 26 year old. you are not alone. here's my advice: find what motivates you, and pursue it with abandon. obviously there are economic realities that make this movment difficult, and this is by design. needing to work for survival keeps us fitting neatly into the roles we've been assigned and makes breaking this mold difficult. this system robs us of our time and energy that we could otherwise apply towards self-actualization. this (combined with the narrative that diverging from a singular career focus will stunt your progress and hinder your sucess) keeps us frozen in a mindset of scarcity and immobility. you have more agency than you realize, though, and your only compass should be that which makes you flourish as an individual. reject consistancy, humans are too complex to be burdened with the obligation to be stagnant. we are told that we have core competencies that make us assets in one specific capacity. this is an economic reality, not a human one. in truth, humans are more capable and dynamic than we know. that which you apply towards one field can just as easily be applied to another, and your "career" can look like making use of your knowledge and skill across many fields and roles and places. don't feel obligated to limit yourself to one narrow path. edify yourself by allowing your compass to guide you along a broad and diverse path. lastly, reject narratives that are not true to your experience. during this period of regaining your agency and taking control of your own direction in life, you will be met with the well-meaning voices of those who have internalized the narratives of our culture, and they will weaponize this against you. they will tell you to fall back in line, to not seek out that which you know to be good for you. do not fall into weariness. you owe it to yourself to find flourishing where you can, and to follow the moving target that will lead you there. what you are doing is brave, and authentic to your true self. answer to no other voice but your own. the corporate climate is so entrenched in the ways of our world and it is starting to reveal itself as a system which does not serve us as individuals. to a certain extent this is out of our control, but in realizing this you can also become more in tune with that which you can control in and of yourself. best of luck friend.