Unemployment and 34 !
Hey guys,
I always say I am going to make it a point to at least write once a week but then I get distracted or my life doesn't seem exciting or nothing to report. But I think the point of writing a blog is to keep you guys abreast with what is going on in my life as a single 30 something year old. Whether it is exciting or not!!! Besides, I am not on a reality show where my life is 'scripted' so it seems like I am always on the move and my life is so exciting that I do not have time to smell the Tim Hortons coffee.
Anyways so I'm watching the TD Jakes show and the founder of pop sugar is on there talking about how she got to be the founder of pop sugar. Anyway, there is a young girl who is in the same boat as me and has a travel blog and doesn't feel inspired to write her blog because she isn't traveling. So Lisa Sugar the founder of Pop Sugar said write about lying in bed watching netflix. People want to be able to relate to you and also see what you are doing whether you are traveling or not. I paraphrased her so don't quote me on this. So I decided, well I need to write regardless of what is going on and also so people who are in my boat or similar boats do not feel alone or hopeless.
So it has been 7 months since I got laid off and yes it has had its ups and downs. Once I recovered from my surgery I had in April I was busy. Running around, volunteering at a summer camp, hosting family and friends. Enjoying the weather. I did not have a moment to myself. Then my parents came to town in October and I was still busy, running around with them and spending time with them I didn't feel like I was bored. Well, the weather has turned colder, not much is going on and most days you can find me on my couch watching TV, trying to read a book. On social media multiple times a day. Playing candy crush, pintresting, yes job hunting actually that's how I start my day, and then when I motivate myself enough I go to the gym. I know what show is on TV at what time and what to look forward to on the next episode. Oh let me not forget to add, my brain has been going overtime with thinking about things not working out for me and then I scare myself silly from all the thinking and it literally puts me into depression. So I have to find a bible verse in order to fight those thoughts and keep me going. Ooh I can tell you hour by hour what I am doing but I do not want to bore you with the details. I am not going to lie, did I think that as of December 2016, I will still be unemployed? Absolutely not. Who thought that I will still be sitting on my couch and watching the days pass me by and still no job. I didn't but I believe there is a purpose for my unemployment. Don't ask me what because I do not know. I think I will figure it out eventually, but I am not losing faith.
So let me say this, I am not lazy, neither am I incompetent. Everyone has an opinion as to why you haven't found a job yet. Some people say, you undersell yourself, some people say you do not network enough, ooh you are not using LinkedIn properly, ooh maybe when you go to interviews you don't sell yourself enough. Ooh your resume isn't selling you properly. I have had my resume changed so many times. I just had a career coach who I met on Saturday tell me my whole resume is wrong. This same resume I have had recruiters tell me it is a really good resume. So Its like OMG instead of telling me what I am doing wrong why don't you just help me knock on some doors and get me a job that will be helpful. I am sure if you are unemployed or underemployed you know what I am saying. I mean yes, I appreciate all the help and all the advice but sometimes its like how many times am I going to change my resume, how many times are people going to say I am not doing enough when I am doing the best than I can. It can get frustrating. I mean after the conversation I had with the career coach today, I was prepared to give up corporate life and figure out starting my own business. The question is what am I good at to start a business. What do I enjoy? I mean that is also another thing I need to worry about.
Anyways did I imagine that at 34 years old, I will be unemployed, single, living with my sister, still depending on my parents and battling an auto immune disease. Not at all. I was thinking at 34, I would have been married at least 10 years, 3 kids, driving a range rover, and a senior executive of a multi national, living in a 5 bedroom house in the suburbs and my kids will be in private school. Am I sad that I haven't achieved all of that. Umm honestly no. Because at the end of the day, there is no guarantee the husband and I would be happy. My kids might be driving me up the wall. That range rover comes with bills and the house need I forget, I also will have a stressful job where I can't find time to spend with my family and I will feel that I didn't get the chance to really enjoy certain things in life that I have been able to enjoy now. Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying that anybody who has achieved those things are unhappy. Absolutely not! I am not saying that I do not want to enjoy those things, of course I do. I really want to, but what I have learnt in life and through my unemployment is that and this might sound cliche but, you might not where you want to be but you are exactly where you need to be. There are so many things I have experienced waiting for these things to happen that I know I would have missed out on them if I had done those things. At the end of the day, I need to focus on watering the grass on my lawn and making it greener instead of looking at what I do not have and missing out the beauty of my changing scenes of life.
The other day, I was sitting in my room pretending that I was Oprah's guest on Oprah's show Soul Filled Sunday, correct me if I got the show title wrong or I was pretending I was talking to a group o girls. (Yes I still play pretend and not ashamed of it, that's where I can get creative or live out my dreams and desires until they come to pass) lol. Anyways so I was playing pretend and I was talking about how our hunger for dreams and desires sometimes pushes us to force certain things to happen and then when it turns out wrong, we get upset, we blame everyone and everything because our impatience. So I gave this analogy, you are starving, you walk into a pizza palour and you order a pepperoni pizza. But you are so hungry, you can't wait for them to make the pizza, so you pick up the raw dough put toppings on it and eat it raw. What will happen? Most likely it will taste absolutely disgusting, and aside that you most likely will get food poisoning. Then as a result you will never have a pizza ever again or anything made of dough and you most likely blame yourself and other people around for not stopping you from eating it raw. Because you allowed your hunger to control you that you couldn't wait 15 mins for your pizza to be ready. I know its a weird analogy. Or let's get something better less gross. So you order a pizza they tell you 30 mins for delivery but you are so hungry you keep munching on snacks. Not even snacks worth eating, maybe chips, cookies, or stuff that you know will fill you up and not going to give you any nutrients and then the pizza comes you are so full from eating all that junk you can't even enjoy the pizza. Whereas maybe whilst you waited you focused on having a salad to sustain you until your dinner was ready, at least a salad is good for you and give you some good nutrients and then when your pizza comes you can enjoy it without the guilt.
The point of my story is this, yes I am not where I want to be, I am unemployed, I am hungry to be back in the work place, but instead of filling my time with uselessness or getting a job that will frustrate me and take away time from waiting for the right job. I can focus on either, getting a course done, volunteering, starting a business, keeping myself busy, networking being productive, building my spiritual life , actively job hunting. Then when the job comes along I am prepared, I am ready and I will feel like this waiting time wouldn't feel wasted and I will also not just settle for anything.
I am 34 years old and unemployed. It does not make me less than a person, it does not mean I am behind in the race of life. It does not mean I am incompetent. It just means I need to work harder, keep my faith alive, keep positive, do my bit and then at the right time the job will come. For now, I will enjoy the time I have to myself, sleeping in a little bit, getting to watch the shows I want until my sister comes home from work. Improving my cooking skills, going to the gym a little bit more. Researching ways to improve my auto immune disease, keep watching my christian shows on tv to keep me motivated and most importantly writing my blog often and motivating others the best way I know how. Stay happy and enjoy my journey, because I know once I get to my destination the journey would have made me the woman I need to be.
lots of love
xoxo
A.P.W
I always say I am going to make it a point to at least write once a week but then I get distracted or my life doesn't seem exciting or nothing to report. But I think the point of writing a blog is to keep you guys abreast with what is going on in my life as a single 30 something year old. Whether it is exciting or not!!! Besides, I am not on a reality show where my life is 'scripted' so it seems like I am always on the move and my life is so exciting that I do not have time to smell the Tim Hortons coffee.
Anyways so I'm watching the TD Jakes show and the founder of pop sugar is on there talking about how she got to be the founder of pop sugar. Anyway, there is a young girl who is in the same boat as me and has a travel blog and doesn't feel inspired to write her blog because she isn't traveling. So Lisa Sugar the founder of Pop Sugar said write about lying in bed watching netflix. People want to be able to relate to you and also see what you are doing whether you are traveling or not. I paraphrased her so don't quote me on this. So I decided, well I need to write regardless of what is going on and also so people who are in my boat or similar boats do not feel alone or hopeless.
So it has been 7 months since I got laid off and yes it has had its ups and downs. Once I recovered from my surgery I had in April I was busy. Running around, volunteering at a summer camp, hosting family and friends. Enjoying the weather. I did not have a moment to myself. Then my parents came to town in October and I was still busy, running around with them and spending time with them I didn't feel like I was bored. Well, the weather has turned colder, not much is going on and most days you can find me on my couch watching TV, trying to read a book. On social media multiple times a day. Playing candy crush, pintresting, yes job hunting actually that's how I start my day, and then when I motivate myself enough I go to the gym. I know what show is on TV at what time and what to look forward to on the next episode. Oh let me not forget to add, my brain has been going overtime with thinking about things not working out for me and then I scare myself silly from all the thinking and it literally puts me into depression. So I have to find a bible verse in order to fight those thoughts and keep me going. Ooh I can tell you hour by hour what I am doing but I do not want to bore you with the details. I am not going to lie, did I think that as of December 2016, I will still be unemployed? Absolutely not. Who thought that I will still be sitting on my couch and watching the days pass me by and still no job. I didn't but I believe there is a purpose for my unemployment. Don't ask me what because I do not know. I think I will figure it out eventually, but I am not losing faith.
So let me say this, I am not lazy, neither am I incompetent. Everyone has an opinion as to why you haven't found a job yet. Some people say, you undersell yourself, some people say you do not network enough, ooh you are not using LinkedIn properly, ooh maybe when you go to interviews you don't sell yourself enough. Ooh your resume isn't selling you properly. I have had my resume changed so many times. I just had a career coach who I met on Saturday tell me my whole resume is wrong. This same resume I have had recruiters tell me it is a really good resume. So Its like OMG instead of telling me what I am doing wrong why don't you just help me knock on some doors and get me a job that will be helpful. I am sure if you are unemployed or underemployed you know what I am saying. I mean yes, I appreciate all the help and all the advice but sometimes its like how many times am I going to change my resume, how many times are people going to say I am not doing enough when I am doing the best than I can. It can get frustrating. I mean after the conversation I had with the career coach today, I was prepared to give up corporate life and figure out starting my own business. The question is what am I good at to start a business. What do I enjoy? I mean that is also another thing I need to worry about.
Anyways did I imagine that at 34 years old, I will be unemployed, single, living with my sister, still depending on my parents and battling an auto immune disease. Not at all. I was thinking at 34, I would have been married at least 10 years, 3 kids, driving a range rover, and a senior executive of a multi national, living in a 5 bedroom house in the suburbs and my kids will be in private school. Am I sad that I haven't achieved all of that. Umm honestly no. Because at the end of the day, there is no guarantee the husband and I would be happy. My kids might be driving me up the wall. That range rover comes with bills and the house need I forget, I also will have a stressful job where I can't find time to spend with my family and I will feel that I didn't get the chance to really enjoy certain things in life that I have been able to enjoy now. Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying that anybody who has achieved those things are unhappy. Absolutely not! I am not saying that I do not want to enjoy those things, of course I do. I really want to, but what I have learnt in life and through my unemployment is that and this might sound cliche but, you might not where you want to be but you are exactly where you need to be. There are so many things I have experienced waiting for these things to happen that I know I would have missed out on them if I had done those things. At the end of the day, I need to focus on watering the grass on my lawn and making it greener instead of looking at what I do not have and missing out the beauty of my changing scenes of life.
The other day, I was sitting in my room pretending that I was Oprah's guest on Oprah's show Soul Filled Sunday, correct me if I got the show title wrong or I was pretending I was talking to a group o girls. (Yes I still play pretend and not ashamed of it, that's where I can get creative or live out my dreams and desires until they come to pass) lol. Anyways so I was playing pretend and I was talking about how our hunger for dreams and desires sometimes pushes us to force certain things to happen and then when it turns out wrong, we get upset, we blame everyone and everything because our impatience. So I gave this analogy, you are starving, you walk into a pizza palour and you order a pepperoni pizza. But you are so hungry, you can't wait for them to make the pizza, so you pick up the raw dough put toppings on it and eat it raw. What will happen? Most likely it will taste absolutely disgusting, and aside that you most likely will get food poisoning. Then as a result you will never have a pizza ever again or anything made of dough and you most likely blame yourself and other people around for not stopping you from eating it raw. Because you allowed your hunger to control you that you couldn't wait 15 mins for your pizza to be ready. I know its a weird analogy. Or let's get something better less gross. So you order a pizza they tell you 30 mins for delivery but you are so hungry you keep munching on snacks. Not even snacks worth eating, maybe chips, cookies, or stuff that you know will fill you up and not going to give you any nutrients and then the pizza comes you are so full from eating all that junk you can't even enjoy the pizza. Whereas maybe whilst you waited you focused on having a salad to sustain you until your dinner was ready, at least a salad is good for you and give you some good nutrients and then when your pizza comes you can enjoy it without the guilt.
The point of my story is this, yes I am not where I want to be, I am unemployed, I am hungry to be back in the work place, but instead of filling my time with uselessness or getting a job that will frustrate me and take away time from waiting for the right job. I can focus on either, getting a course done, volunteering, starting a business, keeping myself busy, networking being productive, building my spiritual life , actively job hunting. Then when the job comes along I am prepared, I am ready and I will feel like this waiting time wouldn't feel wasted and I will also not just settle for anything.
I am 34 years old and unemployed. It does not make me less than a person, it does not mean I am behind in the race of life. It does not mean I am incompetent. It just means I need to work harder, keep my faith alive, keep positive, do my bit and then at the right time the job will come. For now, I will enjoy the time I have to myself, sleeping in a little bit, getting to watch the shows I want until my sister comes home from work. Improving my cooking skills, going to the gym a little bit more. Researching ways to improve my auto immune disease, keep watching my christian shows on tv to keep me motivated and most importantly writing my blog often and motivating others the best way I know how. Stay happy and enjoy my journey, because I know once I get to my destination the journey would have made me the woman I need to be.
lots of love
xoxo
A.P.W
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