Day 29: Unemployment has ruined the Holidays

I just can't enjoy Halloween this year; partially because I've out grown the whole "sexy-profession" costume but mostly because Halloween is just another reminder of time ticking by in my job hunt.

By November 1st I wanted to be in Chicago. Actually i promised myself i would be in Chicago. But I'm not and i have to admit that i feel like a bit of a failure. I have yet to move beyond college.

Maybe this anxiety is why i keep waking up at 6 AM, worried that if i don't start my job search now, i will miss the perfect job.

The thing i have come to accept is that i'm not going to be 100% satisfied or even happy while i am unemployed. I can't enjoy this as leisure time because my mind and body were not meant to "leisure." I need a purpose to feel whole and good.

So this may be one year where i don't enjoy the tricks or treats as much as i wish i could, but at least i have learned i don't have the spirit to be unemployed. My father will be so relieved.

Advice for Day 25: Screw All the Advice

I went to my career advisor today for the third and last time today. Halfway through her contradictory advice, I felt those ridiculous tears of frustration building behind my eyes. As she discreetly tried to pass me a tissue, I wanted to just bolt from that office of reiterated “It’s a rough economy” cheer-up lines.

But just as I was about to high-tail it out of the office of torture, my advisor said one of the most valuable pieces of advice I’ve heard. She looked over my cover letter and said, “This just doesn’t sound like you.” I told her she was right. It wasn’t me. It was parts of the dozen or so people I have been receiving advice from over the past few months. I lost me sometime around the end of September.

She told me to scrap the cover letter and start over putting me into it. Because, as she so wisely pointed out, I was qualified candidate and I did kind of kick ass.

It’s hard to pinpoint when I lost that sense of self. It is not that one day I woke up and decided to give up my identity in favor of everybody else’s vision of me. It was more that my identity was whiddled away at by all those well meaning advisors and mentors, until I was a hodge podge of dozen other people’s lives.

I have been so confused when I look into the future, that I was willing to put anyone’s future into my cover letters instead of myself. It was just easier.

But in the end, I underestimated my will. It is a lot stronger than I thought and a lot harder to get to shut up. I’m not saying I can magically wash away all that advice garnered over the past few months but I can decide to listen to my gut more. And in the end I am going to give myself the deciding vote of what my future will be.

Advice for Day 24: Have Good People

I have to make a quick tribute to my humbly genius journalism friend Elli Thompson, who is the only individual who can make me jump off the pity train and onto the optimistic wagon with nothing more than a cherry coke and an hour of sincerity.

We all want to be these people, these genuinely good and honest people like Elli, but we rarely can inspire such goodness in ourselves much less pass it on to others. But some of us are blessed to have such graces of human nature in our circle of friends; we must take some time to stop wishing we could be them and start being grateful that they put up with our shit.

As a rule of thumb, I think we should surround ourselves with people who make us feel good and people who make us want to be better. We spend way too much time wanting to change others to be the people we want them to be instead of appreciating those good friends we already have.



And while i am on my tribute kick let me make another shout out to the amazing and beautiful women I have bee privileged enough to call friends the past four years of college. I am blessed with having not just the goodness fairy as a friend, but also a whole slew of lovely ladies I like to call my entourage of kick ass. They may not have the cheeriest dispositions but they could drink Mary Poppins under the table and then give her a eloquent speech about politics or conservation or phycology or the Brewers. Combined these ladies hold all the characteristics I so respect: the gumption and guts, the humor and humility, the charisma and charm, the selflessness and sexiness.

At times when it is apparent that we are not the greatness we anticipated we were going to be, it is easy to forget are in the presence of future greatness. All of these ladies are going to be the future faces of what a power women looks like- and let me tell you, they look way better than Sarah Palin.