Friday, May 15, 2015

Feeling Like a Failure

So I quit my job today.

This job was my first big step into adulthood.

I wore professional clothes. I worked in a cubicle. I was offered benefits. I took a coffee break everyday about an hour after lunch. I brought my lunch from home everyday, except Fridays. Fridays I went out and explored new food places with my work friends.

This job was my first big step into adulthood.

I was subject to bigotry and unprofessionalism. Found out things about the company that were not in line with my morals. Was hired as a writer, but discovered that no one was actually reading my work and that what I was doing 7 hours a day, 5 days a week did not matter. I couldn't even point you to one of the hundreds of articles I wrote at this company, because I a) have never been told where to look and b) do not know how to access copy that is embedded into the coding of a website. That's right. No one, other than my editor and possibly supervisor, has or will ever read what I have spent the past 10 weeks of my life doing.

As someone whose one goal in life is to create things that audiences consume... This was heartbreaking.

These are some of the reasons why I decided to quit this job. Many would applaud me. A few people have called me brave. How big of me to stand up for what I think is right and hold on to my morals.

I do not want people to think this was some kind of grand gesture. Yes, I had to do something extremely scary. Yes, I think what I did was right. Yes, I still have morals at 22 years of age.

But I am no hero.

I do not, in any way, shape, or form, feel heroic.

I feel like a failure.

I am terrified.

I am terrified of failure.

I am terrified of not getting things right.

I am terrified of letting my parents down.

I am terrified of never feeling accomplished.

I am terrified of not living up to expectations.

Most of the time, the people in my life (friends, professors, classmates, family) believe in me way more than I could ever even believe in myself. Because I am inside my brain. With my fears. With my anxieties. With my self-loathing.

I am terrified of falling into the deep, dark place I was about three months ago before I landed my first job out of college.

I don't like that place. I never want to go back.

But I can feel myself inching down.

Ever since I made the decision that I needed to get out of this job, face my fears, and actually pursue my dreams, I have had a crazy combination of jubilation and fear mixed up inside of me. I could feel it in my stomach, head, palms, and twitching left eyelid. I felt it as I drove to work. I felt it when I drove home from work. I felt it when I sat at my desk. I felt it when I sat in my car at lunch and had to put my book down because I had just read the same sentence over and over again five times and none of the information was actually entering my mind because all I could think about was how fast the last 47 minutes have gone by and how I really hoped that the next 13 would somehow stretch to another hour of lunchtime.

As of today, I no longer work there.

I had maybe an hour of confusion and joy before that transformed into confusion and anxiety and failure.

I feel like a failure.

I hope it will pass.

I hope this next week of commencement ceremonies and graduation celebrations will give me a sense of accomplishment.

I hope I will hear back from one of the dozens of companies I have applied to in the past month.

I hope I do not fall back into that place that I do not like.

I hope I believe in myself again.

I feel like a failure.