“I’m so embarrassed. I’m not a real person yet.”
I’ve recently found myself back in my teenage bedroom posturing professionalism over the hellscape of LinkedIn and networking culture. It’s all par for the course—a 22-year-old’s vexation over the stilted jargon of e-mail etiquette and any mention of “climbing the corporate ladder.” It feels trite and unhelpful to tell you about my experience from a predictable angle of existential dread and self-loathing. So instead, I’ll tell you what I’m doing to get through this post-grad ennui…
1. I started running.
By “running,” I mean jogging at a pace that resembles the urgency you’d have if you were about to piss yourself and needed to find a bathroom fast. On top of this, I’ve already managed to injure my right knee. Nonetheless, this is to say that anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. My knee will heal, and I’ll return to the sweet self-inflicted torture of hurling myself by foot through space. It feels good to be bad at something. It means you have something to get better at. It means you have a purpose.
2. Cooking.
There’s an undeniable satisfaction in seeing the joy on someone’s face (or your own face for that matter) when you cook them a good meal. For the first time in a long while, there are no grades to measure our efforts. No teachers to tell us we did well. No one to dictate what to do, how to do it, and when. Amid the endless cycle of job applications that appear to lead nowhere, cooking—simple though it may be—offers a way to feel that what you create is still valued and seen.
3. Watching movies.
To some—though I wouldn’t heed their advice—watching movies when you’re supposed to be “grinding” (or whatever romanticized notion of capitalism you prefer) is considered a misuse of time. I see it as free therapy, drug-free escapism, and a way to impart knowledge all rolled into one. AMC Nicole Kidman would agree with this.
4. Making “bad” art
A post-grad with no clear job prospects and meager savings has as much confidence as a de-quilled porcupine sitting before a snake. Even worse is a post-grad who wants to pursue something creative despite the slim margin of financial stability. If you are crazy like me, you will fix your gaze on that sliver of hope until you can taste it in the back of your throat and feel its shape in the palm of your hand. But getting to that point means practicing discipline when it comes to artmaking and putting your work out there. You will get nowhere if you stifle your own words before you even get a chance to speak.
5. Finding enjoyment outside of my career.
You might not have the perfect job yet, you might be stuck doing something you hate just to one day do something you love, or you might have no job at all and be willing to give an arm and a leg just to get by. Whatever it is, make sure you live near a park. Touch some grass. Don’t forget about your friends. Start drawing in your old sketchbook again. Test how long you can hula hoop while eating a hot dog. It doesn’t matter.
Just don’t let your career consume you and become the only thing you have going for you. Because if that were the case, life would get pretty dull, pretty fast. Your younger self couldn’t care less whether you’re earning a competitive salary before the age of 30 or not. She’s probably just wondering if you can still cartwheel and recite Nicki Minaj’s “Super Bass” by heart.
And if all else fails, remember that one day you’ll wake up with enough wisdom to see that your once green and fearful outlook on life was, in its own dysfunctional way, a gift. There’s nothing like watching a cockroach crawl out of your floorboards or juggling multiple odd jobs to make rent to remind you that you are, very much, alive.