So my big accomplishment of the week was finishing my resume. I've been putting that off for.....2+ years? Yeah! How's that for cool kids? Then, right at the peak of my aweseomesauce, things got slightly less awesome on me. Stupid world and its stupid rules.
But first, the resume. It really didn't take me long at all once I sat down, asked my dad for some suggestions, and got a basic idea going between him & the internet. The problem of course was really my perfectionism, egoism, apprehension, and anxiety--all of which were character defects that came up during my 4th/5th steps. And are ones I really need to learn to own, claim, and let go if I'm going to grow up.
My perfectionism and egoism have long caused me trouble. Part of it--the perfectionism especially--is that I can't keep my mind on the bigger picture. I get stuck on and lost among details, especially when my anxiety ratchets itself up. A very good therapist once put it: You can't see the forest because of the trees. I get so busy examining and perfecting the details, because that's easy for me as compared with my struggles for/establishing main-idea-ness, that I run around in circles.
The other, closely related problem is that I attach my ego & pride to every goddamn thing in some desperate attempt to prove myself (to whom?). Like with essays and papers for class--I psych myself up into proving to this professor I'm a great motherfucking writer, and it's like the only way I can do that is by practically writing a Master's thesis instead of a 3 page essay on some BS or another. Of course, she/he doesn't care a bit--they just want a paper to grade so they can move on to the next semester. But just imagine the mind games I lead myself into when it's time to write an actual term paper. Similarly to the perfectionism, I can't seem to keep in mind "It's just a goddamn paper for EN102. Nobody cares."
And so it was with my resume for so many years. Now we're talking jobs. Now we're talking no-real-work-history-to-speak-of-in-the-last-4-years. Now we're talking make-or-break. And I freaked, every time, and ran--just straight up avoided the damn thing. It's a remarkably easy thing to do when you're bumming off your parents for food & home. It was easier to pretend I'd take care of it later than face the anxiety I'd attached to the stupid thing. To the whole job-finding process.
But not anymore. I took deep breath, reached out for help (holy shit!), and did it (holy mother fucker on a stick!). I felt so fucking proud--still do, really. And, although I asked for some support as far as how-to's and whats, the bottom line is I did it. I can do it. It felt so fucking awesome to sit there on craigslist, read some certainly promising possibility, see the line "Please send resume's to..." and not freak out. No, I'd read that and squeal "I have one of those!".
It was fucking nice, dawg. And then I found out about cover letters. Shit.
I froze and ran. I mean I had to get ready for shit anyway, but I could probably have replied to one or two more or done something. Sigh.
It's just the thought of having to tailor-make a letter/email/message for every job listing I follow up on with a resume...it's a whole new world for me to succumb to perfectionism and anxiety.
But I did own it. I called my sponsor and we talked about how I can totally do this, and frankly at the job level I'm applying at I probably don't need it. My roommate-of-the-future, Parker, said I really shouldn't need anything more than a paragraph. My friend Paul said he has a basic letter that he reuses & tailors to suit whichever employer he's sending it to. So this isn't so bad, and I knew it, but I was freaked out, if slightly, and had to hear myself say "I got this, don't I?"
Cuz I do. I really do.
But first, the resume. It really didn't take me long at all once I sat down, asked my dad for some suggestions, and got a basic idea going between him & the internet. The problem of course was really my perfectionism, egoism, apprehension, and anxiety--all of which were character defects that came up during my 4th/5th steps. And are ones I really need to learn to own, claim, and let go if I'm going to grow up.
My perfectionism and egoism have long caused me trouble. Part of it--the perfectionism especially--is that I can't keep my mind on the bigger picture. I get stuck on and lost among details, especially when my anxiety ratchets itself up. A very good therapist once put it: You can't see the forest because of the trees. I get so busy examining and perfecting the details, because that's easy for me as compared with my struggles for/establishing main-idea-ness, that I run around in circles.
The other, closely related problem is that I attach my ego & pride to every goddamn thing in some desperate attempt to prove myself (to whom?). Like with essays and papers for class--I psych myself up into proving to this professor I'm a great motherfucking writer, and it's like the only way I can do that is by practically writing a Master's thesis instead of a 3 page essay on some BS or another. Of course, she/he doesn't care a bit--they just want a paper to grade so they can move on to the next semester. But just imagine the mind games I lead myself into when it's time to write an actual term paper. Similarly to the perfectionism, I can't seem to keep in mind "It's just a goddamn paper for EN102. Nobody cares."
And so it was with my resume for so many years. Now we're talking jobs. Now we're talking no-real-work-history-to-speak-of-in-the-last-4-years. Now we're talking make-or-break. And I freaked, every time, and ran--just straight up avoided the damn thing. It's a remarkably easy thing to do when you're bumming off your parents for food & home. It was easier to pretend I'd take care of it later than face the anxiety I'd attached to the stupid thing. To the whole job-finding process.
But not anymore. I took deep breath, reached out for help (holy shit!), and did it (holy mother fucker on a stick!). I felt so fucking proud--still do, really. And, although I asked for some support as far as how-to's and whats, the bottom line is I did it. I can do it. It felt so fucking awesome to sit there on craigslist, read some certainly promising possibility, see the line "Please send resume's to..." and not freak out. No, I'd read that and squeal "I have one of those!".
It was fucking nice, dawg. And then I found out about cover letters. Shit.
I froze and ran. I mean I had to get ready for shit anyway, but I could probably have replied to one or two more or done something. Sigh.
It's just the thought of having to tailor-make a letter/email/message for every job listing I follow up on with a resume...it's a whole new world for me to succumb to perfectionism and anxiety.
But I did own it. I called my sponsor and we talked about how I can totally do this, and frankly at the job level I'm applying at I probably don't need it. My roommate-of-the-future, Parker, said I really shouldn't need anything more than a paragraph. My friend Paul said he has a basic letter that he reuses & tailors to suit whichever employer he's sending it to. So this isn't so bad, and I knew it, but I was freaked out, if slightly, and had to hear myself say "I got this, don't I?"
Cuz I do. I really do.
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