I haven't written much for the past few months. In fact, when I logged in tonight, my blog told me that my last post was in October. The reason is simple: I was in a bad place.
When I started writing this blog, it wasn't necessarily to get my thoughts and opinions through to others; it was more that I just needed to get them out of my head. It took an unexpected turn when I started ranting about all the irksome things that I have to put up with at work. In these past few months, though, I've been doing some thinking. Not thinking about others or what is annoying or how we can improve as a society. I started thinking about me.
I graduated from college last May and immediately found myself over educated and underemployed. With the best education that money and three years worth of sleepless nights holed up in the library can buy, I was stuck working as a part-time cashier in a shop. This was all the more frustrating when I remembered how I used to roll my eyes at one of my high school teachers who always prayed for the 'unemployed and under employed' during morning prayer. No matter what I did, I couldn't find a job better suited to my skill set (and I still haven't, but we'll get there). And that's when it all started to go downhill.
I got frustrated at everything. Just read some of my older posts to see what fights I picked, and judge for yourself how eager I was to find something wrong.
I stopped reading. There was a solid two-month stretch where I didn't touch a book. I listed to my iPod when I was riding on the el, and I left the book I was in the middle of sitting unopened on the nightstand. I know that for some people, this might sound heavenly, and they would have no idea why I'm listing that as proof that I was in a bad rut. The thing is, literature is my passion. I have a degree in literature, for Pete's sake. I've dedicated the last few years of my life to studying literature and the relationship that people have to it. For me, it was like running full-tilt and then stopping dead in my tracks. It was a violent thing for me.
I wasn't talking to people. I had my roommate, who was always there, but other than her, I didn't talk to very many people outside of work. Which made her my go-to vent-ee and my job the center of my life. This is never a healthy place, especially if you don't like your job or harbor some sort of resentment toward it, like I did.
The absolute worst thing I did was turn to Pinterest. Don't get me wrong, I love wasting time on Pinterest as much as the next person. The problem was, I was looking at motivational quotes. I realized that I wasn't in a good place, and I was looking for something to pull me out of it. If those quotes motivate people, that's great. There's no telling where the motivation to break out of a rut will come from. The problem for me, though, was that all those stupid pins made it sound so easy. "Change your thoughts and change the world." "You're the one holding yourself back. Just let go." Or, my personal favorite, "Let go and let God."
As if it was that easy.
And reading all those stupid quotes, and listening to people give you pep talks, and trying to figure out what the heck "let it all go" means just makes the whole thing worse. This is the realization that I've come to: How you think is how you are. (Yes, that's grammatically correct; 'are' is being used in the sense of existence). So, if you have to change your thoughts, you have to change who and what you are. Once you're in the rut of thinking that you're not talented, that you're not smart, that you're not any different from anyone else out there, that there's nothing that sets you apart, how do you start to think differently?
I've started to sort it all out, and I've started to get back on track, but it's not easy. And letting people think that it is easy is probably the worst thing we can do for the people who are going through something like this. I know that a lot of people would hear this story and think "She's over reacting. We've all had sucky jobs, it's not that depressing." The thing is, for me it was. I did my best to hide it, because that's what people do. But that's not easy either. The point is, there is no easy way to go. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or has had everything given to them. God doesn't come down from on high and give you anything; He gives you road signs along the way and, if you're lucky, a great big kick in the pants.
I guess what I'm getting at is that we shouldn't write people off as being wimps or as not having as difficult a time as you. More importantly, we should write ourselves off. No, having a bad job might not have been the worst thing that could ever happen to me, but it sure as heck wasn't the best, either. It might not be as difficult as some things, but it is mentally and emotionally trying. And when that happens to us, we need to learn how to try all over again.
