There’s a lot of reason to fear your phone in my experience, but lately the fear has been based in my emails. Each notification coming through gets your hopes up about an interview or recruiter reaching out, but in 99.9% of cases it’s a generic rejection, a boilerplate thanks for applying, or a recruiter for a job listing that doesn’t actually exist.
When I was looking, really looking, I was sending out more applications than I could (or wanted to) track. When I hit 200 with less than five interview requests, I knew something had to change and the only feasible change would be on my end. So, I threw up my hands at the current state of the work world.
As I worked through the emotions that come with being unhirable, undesirable, unemployable, I honed my creative focus into personal projects across different facets of my life. Things I like doing for me, things I like doing with my friends, things I learned I like along the way. I embraced the months of rest and respite and learning who I was outside of the traditional work framework.
I know what I can do, what I can accomplish, and the weight and pressure of seeing if anyone else agrees is lifted.
The best thing about the silence was the space I had - mentally, creatively, emotionally - to take ideas I’d thought about, dreamed of, and bring them to life. To see if there was something real underneath the big dream. I started here really, with Far From Idle, though it wasn’t called that initially. I got creative with Instagram reels, with writing, with thinking through how unique my life is and how the questions my family asks might translate to others who also want to live life untethered.
From there the ideas never stopped. I’ve got at least three other personal projects running, all requiring different levels of effort and creative energy so when one well runs thinner I can pivot to one flowing more freely. You can see that with these post dates - how some months I can pour more of myself out while others are sparser with energy focused where I have the inspiration.
Working through all of this, creating and building something purely mine has changed me. Obviously there’s the pride in my own work, the excitement of creating for your own sake versus being paid to create for someone else. But really, the biggest change is in self-worth. No longer is that a value that can be determined by someone else - now it is a measure I apply to myself on my own terms.
I know what I can do, what I can accomplish, and the weight and pressure of seeing if anyone else agrees is lifted.