Today I met up with a friend of mine who's been essential in keeping me motivated on my job search. That friend studied almost the exact same as me, experienced the same things as me and basically wants the same as me. For her the big career didn't happen yet although she's five years my senior. Today we talked about how hard it is to stay motivated in your job search while all you hear is people losing employment, settling for nightmare jobs or failing to find one for many years. Not losing faith is genuinely the hardest part. My biggest challenge has been to realize that my dreams are under very real threat of not coming true. In fact, most of them have already not come true. What I've been chasing as the pursuit of happiness is failing and all I can do is watch. Does that mean I won't be happy?
I have increasingly come to the realization that the pursuit of happiness is a pursuit for acceptance; acceptance of the fact that happiness might not happen, that I will have to do things that don't make me happy and that my dreams are not set to come true even if I do all I can to make them come true. We go to university because we're afraid of having to do a job we don't want. We want to have job security and a decent pay and most of our time there professors tell us that's in the cards. Reality looks different. A lot of it is luck. I'm not very lucky and I might very well have to start settling for a job I have no aspiration to do just to earn some cash if I don't find something soon. I'm no longer pursuing happiness, I'm pursuing a condition in which it is bareable to live in. I'm doing great just now but life can't stay like that. I might be happy now but it's simply impossible to keep living at my mom's house. Happiness comes second or third to employment, if I want that or not.
I've been very happy in life and I keep saying all that's left now for happiness is a job. My life is stagnant and I never expected it would be just because I don't have what I always thought I'd have being the awesome student I was, determined and qualified. All my life I've been told that the world is my oyster and it so ridiculously isn't. I have done everything for my pursuit of happiness to turn into arrival and it still hasn't worked out. Not because I didn't want it bad enough. Just because that's how life is. Sometimes it's unfair. Happiness is just way too fragile. You can be World's happiest Mom, then one day your kid doesn't come home from school and I don't see happiness ever being on the plate again. I've been at the short end of the stick a couple of times and was screwed by destiny if ever there was one. And occasionally that has lead to a huge disruption in my pursuit for happiness. Right now I'm pursuing happiness, empirically known as a job, but unsure if what we're all looking for even exists.
My friend and I spoke about the fact that if Judgement Day was tomorrow that would suck but it would also not make a difference. Life has become more of a chore than a desire to fulfil whatever it is we're here for. I would love to worry about the meaning of life and how I can make a change for the better. Real life requires me to not pursue what I want to pursue though and play my part in life. There is no time right now for me to focus on me, my place in life and how I can find fulfilment because as long as I don't have a job I can't even pay my mother for the internet. Basic problems everyone has cloud the way to fulfilment. Fulfilment is not a necessity for life, being able to feed yourself is. So the wise men were wrong and forgot that while we're out there trying to make our dreams come true life still happens and is sometimes not on our side.
My life still doesn't have to be written off. Obviously I am very content with the life I'm living and hopefully even the job will come in time. Even maybe a job I want. I might have a child one day which I'd consider the closest I can imagine to reaching fulfilment. At the same time none of my dreams have come true yet, and as of now, unemployed, not able to support myself, me reproducing isn't even on the radar. All my life I thought I'd be a Mom one day but I might end up not being one. My life will still have to be lived. Happiness is not important. It's hard to let go of hopes and dreams but it might still have to happen. I have expectations of life, not death. Hence, it's failing life we're afraid of, not death itself! The pursuit of happiness will be there until the very end but there's no guarantee we get anything we want. I believe I'll be freakishly happy one day but it's too fragile to be a pursuit. The focus has to be life, not happiness...
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