Job Search Hell

Job-searching has always been the most demoralizing of any experience in life for me...  Wandering around from business to business, spending hours gathering applications, spending hours & hours & hours filling them out, writing down the same information over & over & over again until my hand is so cramped that I can hardly hold the pen, spending hours taking all the applications back...& then not getting a single call-back...

I don't have a College Degree, & I don't have money for College, so I need a job.  A good job.  One that will finally let me move out.  I'm 25 1/2, for Pete's sake, & I'm still living at home!!!  I'm desperate, DESPERATE to move out!!!  I need a decent job, but I don't know what to look for!  I have nearly 6 years of experience in Retail, but I'd like to get out of that, & it doesn't pay that well, anyway.

I have no clue what kind of job I'm looking for---none!  I have absolutely no idea!  I'm so envious of those people who know what they want to do...who have something they're passionate about...  That would make it so much easier...  I heard a quote once:  "I thought I wanted a career.  Turns out I just wanted paychecks."  It sounds kind of petty, but that's where I'm at!  As sad as it is, "Money makes the world go 'round."  I need money!  I'm willing to work for it!  Somebody hire me!

But how do I find a good job?  What do I look for?  Where do I look?  How do I look?!  I don't get it!  How am I supposed to do this?!  And the economy is t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e!  Getting any job is hard enough, let alone getting a good job!  And I see so many losers with jobs...numbskulls, douche-bags, knuckle-draggers, & all kinds of jerks from the bottom-rung of society...as my dad put it "How many rocks did they have to turn over to find these guys???"

I just...I dunno...I'm 25 1/2, still living at home, broke, itching for independence, & with no idea of how to get it...  

"Life's a bitch, then you die."

Emptiness

I've come to realize just how overly-dependent I am on other people for my own happiness...  Not that other people shouldn't affect your happiness--so many people look for happiness in all the wrong things, but I really believe that happiness is about other people.  But regardless of other people, there needs to be something something else...something within yourself...that your happiness is founded upon.

And you know what?  It just isn't there for me...  Something's missing...so many things are missing in my life...

Yeah, there are lots of superficial (but still good, & even important) things I'm missing--certain "accomplishments" or "achievements".  Things like a good job, moving out, a college degree, a girlfriend, & whatever else...  But the thing that really hits me (and hurts me) as missing is not those things themselves, but knowing how to get those things...

But it's so much more than accomplishments & achievements...it's much deeper things...things within myself...things I should have by now, but I don't...  Maturity, responsibility, courage...faith & trust, both in others, & in myself...self-respect, self-love...  I'm not saying I don't have any of those things, because I do.  But not nearly enough...not as much as I should...not as much as is healthy...

Someone once said "Only the way a man is when he is hidden is how he is."  I take a good, hard look at myself, & strip away everything about me that is dependent on other people, until there's nothing left but pure, authentic, simple me.  And you know what?  I don't like what I see...  I'm not saying that I'm a bad person, because I'm not.  But what I see is what's missing...  What I see is...emptiness...

Someone once said "If you're not happy with yourself, you will never be happy with someone else."  That really hits me, because it's so true, with all personal relationships...in romance, in friendship, in family...  I'm not happy with myself.  And contrary to what a lot of people say, happiness isn't merely a choice.  Sure, you can choose your outlook & attitude to go into things with, & you even have some control over your reactions to what happens in the world around you--but ultimately, the world around you has an incredibly vast effect on your feelings, beyond your control.

I have this incredible emptiness inside...and when I can't fill it from within, I try to fill it from without...  Which isn't inherently bad, but it never lasts...because it's completely dependent on other people.  I look at all the people in my life that matter to me...people from Dancing at Swing Club, the MAC, & the Downtown Stomp...people from Frisbee...people from Game Night...and my happiness is so completely tied to those events.  The Downtown Stomp was packed this last Friday, & I was so happy...  But the MAC was dead on Saturday...only 1 guy I knew, only 1 girl I knew, & I only got 1 dance...& it didn't just disappoint me about the evening...it brought me down into utter depression & despair...about life in general...

Sometimes...sometimes I feel like an Emotional Vampire...dead inside, & leeching off of other people what I need to survive...

I know a lot of my Blog-posts & Facebook-statuses (especially the last few) have been pretty down & depressing--I don't want anyone to think I'm feeling suicidal, because I'm not.  But I can't just sit here & tell myself that "everything will turn out right", because I don't know that it will.  Things completely hit the fan in life for lots of people, even with the best of attitudes.  And the deep things within yourself are so much harder to fix than all the outward things in life, superficial or serious.

Emptiness...this great void in the soul is probably the most devastating & perplexing problem the humankind has ever faced...  And just like with all the little superficial achievements & accomplishments, the worst part is not feeling empty--but not knowing how to fill that emptiness...

"Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there."