Growing up, you are blissful unaware of the difficulties of life. You believe that you will go to college, get a job in your chosen field, get married and live in a beautiful house with a white picket fence -- that whole "American Dream" bullshit.
Except, when you enter the real world as a 20-something-year- old nobody, you quickly learn that life isn't easy and that's generally not how it goes.
When I graduated college in 2014, journalism students were often told that jobs in writing are competitive, hard to come by and even harder to get. I thought to myself, "Well, someone has to get it, so why not me?"
The deeper I dove into the process of applying and interviewing, the more I felt like I was being buried alive. For anyone who has ever gone through this, you know you are often met with no response, or even worse, the dreaded e-mail letting you know they decided to go with someone else.
With each rejection inevitably comes self-doubt. We start to spiral, wondering will we ever get a job in our chosen field. Am I even good at this? I feel like I'm running out of time.
With a world that is saturated with social media, that in itself can be one of the worst offenders when dealing with job searches. It's no secret that people will craft the perfect social media image for themselves, that can at times be misleading -- boasting about their achievements, no matter how big or small they are.
This can leave a negative taste in our mouths, fueling our anxiety of feeling like we're being left behind and the question of why we haven't accomplished more.
Our minds are funny like that. Instead of reminding us how far we've come and what we have achieved, we are left agonizing over what we haven't.
I would be lying if I said that these last couple months haven't been especially hard. I've felt so consumed with this fear for my future and self-doubt that it often feels like I'm drowning, like I'm walking around with a cement block strapped to my chest, threatening to crush me.
I have formed this nasty habit of measuring my worth by my career. Not only is it dangerous to someone's mental and emotional health, but it holds no merit. Our job does not make up the person that we are. It is not the only thing that defines us.
Ed2010, a website that posts job openings in the publishing and editorial world recently created a poll about what people were most afraid of when dealing with the publishing world. The options ranged from not making enough money to not liking your boss. The issue that had the highest amount of votes was the fear of never finding a job.
It honestly made me feel relieved. In the career rat race, we like to pretend that we aren't struggling. That we aren't fighting just as hard as the person next to us.
The thing is, when you're standing out in the storm you feel like you're all alone, but when the clouds clear and you take a look around, you'll see everyone was standing out there with you all along.
In our path through life we have to keep trying, to keep hustling and to realize that it's okay to feel afraid and doubt yourself, just don't let it consume you and make you afraid of the unknown.
In the words of Sylvia Plath, "The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt."
As for me, I'll keep writing even if no one is reading it. I'll keep applying and improving my craft -- and maybe, with just a little bit of luck, I'll find that job that I've been looking for.