A Way Forward
I have no idea what I’m doing.
Last month, I quit my shitty job via no call no show (I sent an email to HR and mymanager, but they claimed to have never received it). This is pretty par for the course for me (just walking off the job) but it does tend to leave me with a twig of guilt. Like I should’ve been confrontational, or honest, about the fact that I was leaving. Even though, my former employer doesn’t honor employee’s two week notices!
In the first few days or so, I felt full of energy and optimism about the future. I had just bought a used book at the library called The Joy of Not Working, which felt serendipitous all things considered. In it, the author talks about how to use your time effectively while unemployed or retired. It’s a type of push back against identifying with work, while cultivating a sense of self based on our values and hobbies.
Quickly, I read through much of the book and felt like it was speaking to me. As someone who has always hated working, I found that a lot of the work I did was physically and mentally draining with no path forward. Having possessed no dreams of the future, discernible skill sets or aspirations beyond not going homeless I hopped from job to job as I gradually climbed out of poverty level wages while still working shitty jobs.
My last job was a customer service type position where my coworker bragged about how she just let the customers yell at her when she called them about their unpaid invoices. I had coworkers who barely worked, which burdened the rest of us, and a manager who spent the bulk of the day in an entirely different department unbothered by what we did all day (as long as we weren’t on our phones or surfing the internet).
I don’t know if this is common or not - but I hate being miserable at work. I can stay a long time in a job that’s boring but doesn’t trigger me into anxiety attacks, but not in a job where I would need therapy in order to function.
So I quit with no job lined up - again, not unusual for me - and was hoping that quitting the job would bring me into alignment with my Higher Self and set me on the path that I was meant to be on.
However, nearly four weeks after quitting, I find myself going to bed at 5am and waking up too lethargic to get out of bed before 2 or 3pm. I spend the whole day in my pajamas, with only one real time commitment during the week, once a week, and don’t leave my apartment except to run errands.
Is this what God had in store for me?!
Initially my mind was running all over the place: since I had insurance until the end of April, I went to get my eyes checked for new glasses and teeth cleaned. I took another crack at Meetup, and found myself upset that I didn’t live in NYC where there would be more stuff to do on any given day. Got interested in New Thought (ie positive thinking) but found that being a recluse with no income dramatically impacted what I was able and willing to do outside of my apartment.
Although I’m not a believer in masculine/feminine energy type stuff, I did find myself fixated on the fact that I was meant to be doing (masculine). Wallace D. Wattles, a New Thought author, instructs in The Science of Getting Rich that we should be doing the most we can every day (which I assumed meant leaving my apartment).
But following intuition tends to be more feminine in the sense of allowing. Bella Lively, an intuitive life coach, teaches that we’re meant to get into alignment with our inner voice (our connection to God/Source) and that will instruct us on how to move forward. The way to do this is through meditating, or doing tasks that are aligning (which means that your mind is on board with your spirit so there’s no resistance). We can also pay a facilitator (often to the tune of $222 or more) to do an inner voice session where someone will guide us into a meditative type state and ask questions to our inner voice. So in theory, not completely difficult.
My problem with manifestation is that you need to know what you want, and affirmations are designed to help rewire your brain so that you’re thinking better, more positive thoughts. But, I have never really had a clear vision of what I wanted for my future. Ever.
I’ve spent my life responding to things in a knee jerk way that ignored my intuition and put me in situations that ultimately weren’t good for me. I think that while I can - sometimes - make the best of a bad situation, the possibility that I could’ve had a more aligned, and better opportunity had I waited and became still constantly gnaws at me.
In fact, the job I recently quit had one of my red flags (offered the job during the interview) and I only took it because I had spent almost three quarters of 2023 unemployed despite so many interviews. In fact, had I taken the time to read the job ad more carefully, I never would’ve applied because the commute was over an hour away by bus and still required I walk a third of a mile to get there.
Lessons learned! (I hope).
So I guess I see my quitting as righting some wrongs, and putting myself back on the path that maybe I am supposed to be on. One of my lifelong goals is developing a relationship with God, and reconnecting with the intuitive voice I heard as a child and young adult but abandoned somewhere along the way.
I feel like the older I become, the more my mental and emotional health deteriorates. While trying to write this post, I realized that I am just reliving the same wounding over and over. Unlike other people who seem to be able to go ahead in life, despite their problems, I am trapped.
And honestly, I need to do whatever I can to break out of these cycles because I am not finding any relief and I don’t think I can get what I want out of life until I do.
I don’t know if thoughts create or influence reality, but I definitely want to at least stop feeling so bad about myself all the time.
So for now, I’m unemployed and not job hunting. But I will be prioritizing the things that are (currently) important to me in hopes that it’ll bring me into alignment and help me have a better life than the one I have now. Because I feel, energetically, that I am at an end point that I desperately need to transcend sooner rather than later.