Jalen Gooch

Photo by Inggrid Koe on Unsplash

Disclaimer: This is a bit of a stream-of-consciousness post, so please bear with me.

This past week has felt like living in the twilight zone for many. I woke up Wednesday morning, shocked, disappointed, and anxious. Despite all the hope I had placed in the future, it feels like things will only be harder to navigate moving forward.

I am not new to uncertainty. The COVID-19 pandemic struck right as I began my transition from high school to university, and I spent many nights wondering if I would ever make it to a college campus or if life would ever return to “normal.” 

Humans are resilient beings and whenever faced with an obstacle or challenge always find a way through in the end. This does not make things easier. After a while, it gets harder and harder to avoid falling into the trap of despair. 

You always hear that things will always work out and you have so much time to figure out what you want to do with your life. You try new things, fail, move on, and eventually wake up one morning and realize you are surrounded by everything you’ve dreamed of. If not, at least you are closer than when you started. 

At the core of this idea is the hope that the future you envision for yourself is within reach and that if you keep working you will eventually have the life you desire. I struggle with the notion that we as individuals always know what we want and that getting there is a clear path.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who has wished and prayed for something to regret it immediately the second it comes to fruition. We can never truly know what something will be like until we experience it for ourselves. What works for other people simply might not work for us.

Sometimes this causes me to struggle to set large goals for the future because, at the back of my mind, I have the fear that things will be worse than I had hoped for and that by pursuing these goals, I missed the opportunity to do something I would’ve loved.

Given the current set of circumstances in which the future is as uncertain as it’s ever been, the pressure to quickly figure things out has only doubled. We are told that as long as we wake up and show up every day things will sort themselves out.

However, this narrative can often lead to a buildup of feelings of resentment and frustration, when after weeks of work you have nothing to show for it. Rome wasn’t built in a day, so we shouldn’t expect things to happen overnight, but at what point are we too late?

We hear stories of celebrities who didn’t succeed until later in life and that we are never too old to start working toward our dreams, but what about the thousands of people who try and fail? Did they do something wrong or not work hard enough?

I don’t want to spew negative thoughts, but I want to be vulnerable and share my feelings in case someone reading feels the same way. It can be hard to hold onto hope when things happen beyond our control that ultimately derail our plans for the future.

Finding hope in these darkest moments is the most important thing we can do to keep moving toward a brighter future, but what happens when you lack the motivation to even look in the first place?

Recently, I’ve struggled to find the motivation to create and write. Given all that has happened in the past week, everything I am doing feels trivial given all the larger things happening in the world. 

Why am I putting so much energy into things that only three people will see? Is this something I am passionate about and want to pursue, or am I using it to distract myself from my life falling apart around me? 

If I am being completely transparent, writing and creating content has given me a sense of purpose and completion during this transition period in my life. Even though I still have yet to share the things I have created with my larger circle of peers, it’s nice to look back and know that I completed something.

These small everyday wins have kept me going thus far, and I am proud of myself for all I’ve done. However, the second I start to compare what I am doing with that of my peers or the larger events happening in the world, I’m suddenly reminded how minor these achievements are. 

Even before recent events occurred, I remember falling into a similar rut after receiving a particularly painful rejection from a job. While I had stopped writing a few works before as I prepared for the interview, as soon as I heard back the results, it became significantly harder to find the motivation.

At this point, a lot of these side-projects I had undertaken were still something I was keeping to myself. I ended up getting lunch with one of my close friends and somewhere in the conversation, I divulged all that I had been working on. What did I have to lose, it wasn’t like anything I had been working on mattered at this point right?

As if they were directly addressing the negative thoughts in my head, they affirmed what I had been working on and told me that I should be proud of what I’ve accomplished these past weeks and months. They shared their experience creating art in private and how it can be hard to find the motivation to keep going at times, but there will always be people cheering you on.

After fighting back tears at the table, it all finally clicked for me. So many small things that are seemingly meaningless to us matter so much to the people around us. The past few days have been far from easy, but I’ve realized that what has kept me going is the people in my life.

I remember hearing a quote that describes loving someone as choosing to see them at all points of their life, the good, the bad, the mundane, and the exciting. You are choosing to look at this person and say I see you. 

You are seen when you are experiencing great success. You are seen when everything has fallen apart and you are broken. It doesn’t matter what you are going through, you are seen.

When struggling to come to terms with the gravity of the future or when I can’t fall asleep due to my mind racing with all my missed opportunities or failures, I am reminded of the people in my life who not only have seen me but have chosen to stick by my side through every phase of life I’ve gone through.

While I always viewed hope as some bright light projecting itself somewhere in the distant future, I now realize that it’s been by my side all along. The small interactions I have every day with the people I love are a reminder that there is so much more than what is going on in my head.

When I am tempted to tell myself that what I am doing is meaningless or that I am simply wasting my time, the face or voice of a friend pops into my head. As hard as it can be to believe at times, so many people are rooting for your success. More than you could ever imagine.

As we continue to move into an increasingly uncertain future, it’s important, now more than ever, to lean on the people around us. It’s going to look different every day and sometimes the biggest thing you would have accomplished is simply getting out of bed and getting dressed, and that’s okay.  

Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it also wasn’t built by a single person. 

Thank you for making it this far! I’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic so feel free to comment below or email me at funemployedera@gmail.com. If you are interested, I also host InMyFunemployedEra, a podcast where I discuss similar topics. Thanks again for reading and until next time. Take Care!