How To Not Sink Into Despair

I totally just got a gig writing a guest blog for this website igrad.com that serves as a resource for recent graduates who aren't really sure what to do next.  They asked me to write about how I cope with being unable to find a job or a strong sense of direction after college.  This is what I sent them...

On Post-College Despair

Since graduating from college into unemployment two months ago, I've been slowly uncovering this weird, new law of physics: the emptier time is, the harder it is to fill.  Somehow having nothing to do makes it harder to do anything at all.  I've also learned how to cook on a budget (beans beans beans!), and a whole hell of a lot about the show Lost (post-college tip number one: don’t start fucking watching Lost). 

There are a lot of people graduating from college with liberal-arts degrees right now into a world that feels inhospitable and a job market that definitely belongs to the buyer.  Morale is a huge problem for a lot of us, and I'd like to share some of the discoveries I've made about how to keep one's chin up in the face of joblessness.

It's common to harp on the importance of imposing your own structure onto your time, so that you don’t become that TV-and-beer caricature of the unemployed.  What's seldom mentioned is that it's almost impossible to stick to a schedule that you know you just pulled out of your ass and that has pretty much nothing hinging upon it. 

Equally as important as self-discipline, then, is the ability to forgive yourself and just get back onto the discipline-horse when you do inevitably fall off.  Because making no effort is even more painful than making a futile one, and even if your goals do turn out to be unobtainable and your efforts really are worthless, at least you're not just kind of hanging around.  I know that this is a very cynical line of reasoning, but I've found it helpful to remember that even if my efforts are for naught, I'm still making myself happier by trying.

I've also found it necessary to learn how to convince myself of things that may or may not be actually true, in order to avoid sadness.  Things I have decided to believe include:

-If you try hard enough, something good will come of it eventually.

-The situation is temporary.

-The knowledge that I gained in college is valuable and I'm better for having gained it.

Using this mantra, I've managed to lurch back into productivity many times.

I've also put together some dos and don'ts that I've found helpful…

DO:

-Vary your routine.  Take your laptop to a coffee shop and write cover letters there.  Go to a friend's house for a movie.  Generally just get out of the house.

-Exercise.  It will burn off some of your existential doubt.

-Keep in touch with people who support you.  Seek out positive, productive people and have coffee with them.

-Find stupid little ways to cheer yourself up.  Sometimes I buy myself flowers from the supermarket and put them in my room for no reason.  This is a very, very lame thing to do.  Do these things anyway and laugh at yourself.

-Get up in the morning.  Take a shower.  Put on real clothes.

-Every time you spend money, write it down in a table.  This will give you a realistic picture of where you need to cut costs, and it will also encourage you to spend less.

-Find something to take care of.  I recommend plants over dysfunctional romantic partners, but that's a judgment call.

-Drink tea.  Yerba mate and green tea are particularly good because they provide caffeine without being hard on your stomach or making you feel tweeky. 

-Keep on keepin' on.

DON'T:

-Sink into a pit of despair.

-Allow yourself to remain in a pit of despair if you do find yourself inside of one.

-Start fucking watching Lost.

-Get angry with yourself when you don't reach your own goals or follow your personal rules.  You will fail sometimes and you have to just kind of keep going anyway.

-Drink too much.  It's easy since you never really have to get up the next day, but it will hurt both your soul and your wallet in the long run.

-Spend more than you can really afford to.  You should treat yourself every once in a  while to maintain morale, but it should be like a pint of ice cream every week, not a martini every hour and a half.

Of course, I really have no more authority on these matters than any other out-of-work college graduate, and I would love to hear any thoughts from my peers about how best to move forward.  We gotta figure this thing out together.