May is Mental Health month in the United States. Last week, the UK had Mental Health Awareness Week from the 13-19th. Because of this, I wanted to write a more personal post, sharing an insight into a recent personal conflict I had to contend with.
A Perfect Fit
A good friend of mine recently helped me recalibrate how I was viewing a particular development (or lack thereof) that has been weighing heavily on me for the past few weeks.
You see, after a few rounds of vetting, I was able to earn myself a face-to-face interview with a company for a job that would have been beyond perfect—not only in terms of my personal interests but also in relation to my professional and creative goals. It was a perfect fit.
When the interview had concluded, I was told that I would hear back within a week.
Fast forward the requisite week, I was on high alert all day waiting for that fateful phone call to blare the nWo ringtone I'm using from my phone's speakers.
Whether it was positive or negative, the weight of the call itself was enough to keep my ears keenly attuned as I suffered an acute case of phantom toneitis.
Then…the call never came.
G...G...G...Ghosted!
The night the call was meant to come, I had plans for a friend's birthday and had sincerely hoped (like deep down, cross all your toes and fingers hoped) that I would be able to add to the festivities with good news.
Instead, I heard nothing and was left in perpetual limbo because of it.
Trying to take the initiative, I sent a polite follow-up e-mail to my point of contact on the following Monday. This, too, didn't bear any fruit and I was left on the outside looking in, a la Staind circa 2001, learning a harsh lesson in what it means to be ghosted.
A Cake MiX Of Emotion
It's been a while since my initial interview took place, common sense and my two brain cells working together to let me know I was probably not successful in my interview. So I did what, I think, most people would do: I fell into a self-loathing cycle.
I focused on all the things I had done wrong, all the examples I had forgotten to include, all the points I wish I had listed—things that seem so obvious now that just wouldn't present themselves at the moment (chiefly recounting my writing and research process).
My friend likened it to remembering how to breathe: you do it so often, you forget the core mechanics because, well, it's a natural process.
But this specific bout of frustration circulated around my sense of personal failure. I had fucked up the interview. I had made nothing but mistakes. I lost the job because I wasn't good enough.
Alternatively, I may have actually had a great interview and the things I've zeroed in on may only have been egregious to me.
My friend put it wonderfully, annoying to me to no end with the rational logic he was bringing to the table. He postulated that maybe it simply came down to experience.
Perhaps someone with more experience writing for larger websites was able to bring that experience to the table, subsequently did well, and was ultimately offered the position.
That's not about me screwing things up, that's about them being the better choice at the time and the company making a decision they felt was in their best interest.
It took a moment for his theory to sink in—I was too wrapped up in the emotion of the ghosted rejection and insinuated Catch-22ness of the situation to try and look at it with a little detached logic, he playing the Spock to my Kirk.
Regardless, it's obviously equal parts upset and frustration that has gone into this lumpy cake mixture of emotion.
But holding onto that kind of self-loathing and personal animosity only leads to the decay of one's self-worth. Trust me. Even holding onto the ghosting element of this situation only compacts the negative self-reflection, falling into a downward spiral of 'why not me,' 'I don't deserve anything,' 'I'll never do well,' etc., etc.—especially when you then compare and despair.
Once you start to slip, it's easy to gain momentum and get lost in an internal echo chamber of negativity, to become wholly tunnel visioned on a negative result. It's a lot harder to try and remove yourself emotionally from it and look it at it more pragmatically, and I'm thankful my friend helped me do exactly that.
So I'm attempting to flip this and use this experience as a lesson—one that will hopefully allow me to do that much better if and when another opportunity arises. It harkens back to a fundamental lesson
I learned through my love of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: you win or you learn.
Now to put it into practice.
Steve R
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