One more day until the end of January. I’m counting down to the moment when I officially complete six months on the job. It’s important to me because I wish to be regularized as an employee.
Recently, I’ve come across YouTube videos urging people to consider “boring” jobs.” One YouTuber in Human Resources, in particular, made a valid point: there are “TV jobs,” easily explainable to others, such as doctors, architects, teachers, engineers, and therapists. No child says, “‘I want to annotate data in a tech company,” as far as I know. And nobody has said, “I want to complete the educational credentials to be a psychotherapist, realize I don’t like doing therapy, and be a writer instead” either.
My countdown partially explains why I’m in the doldrums lately. There’s a pause in my writing activity as I wait for the official announcement before posting anything online. Will I stay, or will I go? Waiting for something has always triggered sleep-loss-inducing anxiety for me. But I think the question I need to ask is “Do I really want to stay?”
Because deep inside I doubt if I deserve this job. As always, I’m my #1 belittler.
Primarily, I scold myself for choosing this unglamorous, mundane, corporate job. I don’t actually know how I ended up with the Knowledge Process Outsourcing company, but my feet led me here. It’s most likely because of the remote work arrangement, but the real answer is the comfort of a predictable routine. There is a lull of comfort in knowing what you will do every day in the face of life’s many uncertainties. Since I lived in an unpredictable emotional environment as a child, this constancy is what I crave. I can’t shake it; it is largely a part of who I am.
I bet I am also here because I’m still figuring out how to be a psych professional while not compromising myself. The closest I can get to defining who I am career-wise is “writer-psychologist.” It’s not a straightforward and easily explainable title, but maybe that’s ok because I’m not fooling anyone, least of all myself.
A true psychologist conducts psychotherapy, right? And a true writer is a published one.
I’m not quite either yet.
The book release looms, the job regularization is unclear, and my place in the psych world is an enigma. There are too many unknowns that I feel untethered. Some people love being wild and free and while I yearn for unambiguous plans and security.
The temptation is to crawl inside my private world and not move at all, not write anything at all. But I still wake up every day, jog, do chores, log on to work, and go on. Because this is what I know now: The answers to my big questions are not a hundred percent up to me. I also believe, (despite being faithless in a religious sense), that things will be okay.
Gradually, I’m starting to feel okay with myself, I am starting to turn down the volume of self-hatred that’s always playing in my head.
With the pending possibilities, I will reach the benchmarks of success I have set for myself. I’m keenly aware of the deep-seated urge to set the bar higher, to make myself jump through hoops, and to force myself to be someone I’m not, just so all the pretty pieces fit, nice and perfect.
But I don’t want that. I don’t want perfect. I want something original, I want me.
I’m standing up to my insecure self for once, and I’m telling it (gently) to shut up.
All I have to do right now is sit tight and wait. The answers will come in due time.
Whether things work out or not, I’ll find comfort in the recurring mantra in my life: ‘I’ll know what to do when I get there.’
Indeed, this is my truth now.
The featured image on this blog was AI-generated by me using free tools, namely ChatGPT, Canva, and Leonardo AI. I use these images to support my written content creatively and cost-effectively.
