Pessimistically, Jonathan

Dim morning light shines through the glass of the patio door as my eyes open to the sound of an iPhone alarm, one I’ve gotten ever so acquainted with. It’s 7:00 in the morning and I sigh. I’m not getting up yet, I have a second alarm set for 7:30, this first one is a kind reminder that my moment of parting with the safety of my blankets is almost here. 7:30 arrives in a flash, and I refuse its call. I don’t have a real reason to get up early this morning, I’m tired and work doesn’t start till 9, and I don’t even have to start ‘truly’ working until at least 11. I have plenty of time! 9:30 arrives, and I finally depart from my bed to the shower. I take my time there, letting the hot water massage my back as I mull over how much I don’t want to do my job. My mind races with frustrations, questions, career anxiety, and a rash and relentless desire to just quit. I don’t want to do it. Frankly, I don’t want to do anything. If I could, I’d just stay in my bed all morning, hell, even into the afternoon, as long as I don’t have to do this work. I put on pajamas and head over to my workstation: my bed. Turns out I CAN spend all morning and afternoon in bed, but for some reason, I don’t feel nearly as at peace as I wanted to, I wonder why. Maybe working in bed isn’t the best option, but where else do I go? I live in a shoe box in Manhattan, in a room with no desk space. My roommate’s here too and I have a bunch of calls. I feel trapped, so I allow the hours pass and the end of day comes, yet I feel no relief.

This day has occurred time and time again over the past 8 months, virtually every morning during the work week. I can say with certainty that this is a work related change in behavior. I haven’t exactly been the happiest with my job. To be honest, I’ve been pissed at it. That attitude made its way into my life itself, where my work related frustrations cast their shadow over everything else. Let’s begin here, the WHY. My work role during this time was a senior technology risk consultant. A consultant, in simplest terms, is someone who provides specialized services to a company (i.e. tax assistance, transformation, auditing, etc) that doesn’t want to hire its own internal department to do it. It’s a jack of all trades industry, there are so many options to choose. Technology Risk consulting, in this case, is evaluating a company’s critical IT applications for certain controls that provide assurance that their use of IT is not messing with their financial statements. All glamorous wording aside, my actual job is being an IT auditor. The work was black and white where I had thought it would be full of color, not exactly how the job was sold to me when I applied 2 and a half years ago. The creative work I initially thought I’d be diving into was actually quite the opposite. It was a role requiring immense skepticism and attention to detail, and as someone who typically trusts others and explores philosophy and broad concepts for fun, I wasn’t exactly a match for this job. In work, I desire an Ikigai, a Japanese principle on work and purpose that is commonly displayed as a 4 circle venn diagram. What the world needs, what you’re good at, what you can be paid for, and what you love. I’ve been searching for that, but I had felt so stuck over the past 2 and a half years, specifically 8 months, that I dissolved into my role and allowed myself to just exist. If my passion and effort weren’t going into my work, it may as well go into nothing. From that moment on, I felt disconnected from the job I was being paid to do. I no longer wanted to take pride or ownership over it. Granted, I did very well in the job itself, but in no way had to, nor desired to, put my 100% in it. My technical skills were used, but my creative side, the side that writes essays for a blog about optimism, corgis and self development, was unnecessary and practically discouraged in the role. This realization occurred within a few months into the job, yet regardless of the feeling, I had a craving to learn about the consulting industry, understand who I am as a working adult better and get settled into New York, so I stuck with it to get my senior promotion, which typically takes 2 years, then find my next step. My 1st career goal out of college was to create a safety net for myself. A net that’s there when I take a new risk in my career, that would catch me in it if things went upside down. I knew that once I made it to senior, I’d be able to move on to new things, even fail at them, and always be able to go back to my old role with experience to prepare for my next move if need be. I firmly believed that patience would pay off in the long run.

I got my official senior promotion this past October, but had been operating in the senior role for an entire year and a half before that. I’ve written this part of the essay a few times, where I go in depth about my qualms with the job and corporate structure in general, but I realized after reflecting on it (and speaking with my mother) that it doesn’t serve the purpose of this essay. As Brene Brown says in her book Rising Strong: “Complaining is okay as long as we piss and moan with a little perspective.” That’s what I was missing, perspective. There’s a big part of me that wanted to attach some sort of blame or fault onto the job I didn’t like, and while I know it did in fact contribute to the issues I will get into later, I need to bring the ownership back to me here. I chose this job, after all. Simply put, I felt a total lack of purpose in my work, and felt immense frustration from that and all my other issues with the role. In corporate consulting, it’s a go go go mentality, a fast paced industry which places you on the fast track of professional development, connections, and project experience. It’s definitely the kind of job where people put very long hours into for a multitude of reasons, such as promotions, project milestones, business development and networking. I’ve been quite involved in the company outside of my specific job, where I served as a high school mentor for 2 years and currently work as the social chair for our LGBTQ+ professional network. Looking back on my life, I have an immense supply of energy to not just work hard and long, but to create things that change the status quo and improve the organizations I’m a part of. I use that energy with intention, putting it into things which I want to succeed, that I care about deeply, that I believe is work worth doing. In the case of my job, I had 0 interest in technology risk or auditing, let alone the corporate politics that came with succeeding in it. I did not care about my work, had absolutely no desire to improve in the subject area, and felt like a pawn that was just meant to be thrown around to complete the never ending to-do’s of the management above me. Granted, I am incredibly grateful to have found this job in the first place. It moved me to New York and enabled me to meet some treasured friends in my life. It pays me money! However, I quickly realized that money is not a motivator for me, it’s a by-product, not a goal. I desire purpose and intention in my work. I want to be able to talk about my job with the same passion I have when I show someone my bullet journal. In the case of my role, I didn’t have that. I lacked the qualities I so very much desired in my work. It made it practically unbearable to work some days, my mind wanted to push it away like I used to push away my Dad’s kale. Over time, I developed an exceptionally pessimistic attitude with work, and optimism suddenly became a lot harder to embody in my day to day life.

I haven’t written anything, let alone posted anything for this blog since June 2021. This blog, which has the purpose of being the exact place I can reflect on stuff like this, is so important to me. It’s a new piece of my life that I’ve learned to truly cherish, and I ignored it. I let go of it, put other excuses and stressors over it when I didn't have to. It’s alright to take breaks from what we’re doing once in a while, it provides valuable perspective, but my break never ended. I didn’t try to make it end. That’s not like me. That was the first instance I knew my state of mind was starting to affect my life. It felt like the tide had come once again. I haven’t felt that tide since my Junior year of college, but that one only lasted a month or so. In this case, it lingered for much longer. It set up shop, it seems. 

I took a break from my bullet journal, and with that, my habit tracking and routines that came with its self imposed system. These habits are critical to my own health and wellbeing, so much so that I created a personal journal by hand to stay on top of these things every month. My old morning routine of getting up with plenty of time before work for a walk, some coffee, quiet reading time, yoga, was placed on the backburner. I wasn’t trying at work, and stopped trying at home too. Everything just felt like work at this point. I unknowingly carried an ‘all or nothing’ mentality with me, where if I couldn’t do it all correctly and completely, there was no point even trying. What used to be self compassion became pessimism toward what I’m capable of. Go figure that losing my morning routine to instead wake up just in time for work made me feel even worse. My feelings about work became my feelings about everything. Sure, I had physical separation from work after hours, but my mentality refused to separate, especially when you work from home everyday for 2 years. As such, I felt just as miserable at work as in the mornings, nights, and wherever else, because it was all leading to the next time I had to log on. I was starting to let go of parts of my life I had created by myself, for myself in my day to day. I felt so tired. I felt absent from my own life.

I’ve forgotten birthdays. This is one that’s particularly meaningful to me. In previous years I even bought custom stationery that I would send to friends when their birthday was approaching on my calendar. I truly think it’s important that we remember and celebrate the birthdays of our loved ones, even if it’s just a nice voice memo. I believe it’s a fair and honest way to maintain your presence in someone’s life, regardless of how far away you are. Putting that effort in to recognize and celebrate a loved one’s birthday, in my opinion, is as a sign of gratitude for the person in your life. It’s not this major thing you do for them that solidifies your bond, it’s a nuanced action that simply serves as a reminder that you’re there and you care. From my experience, it’s the small things like that which make a world of difference. Over the past few months, I was never checking what day it was. Frankly, I didn’t care what day it was, they all felt the same to me. In my own struggles to take care of myself, I weakened my ability to be there for others in the ways I viewed as important. I felt like I was on a different planet, with no idea how to get back to myself.

Simply put, my emotions seemed quite tantrum-like. I remember that feeling, years ago in middle school, when I’d get so frustrated at my math homework to the point I chucked my pencil against the wall because I didn’t understand the problem. I didn’t get it, and I didn’t WANT to get it. Yet I had to keep doing it, and it felt like total agony. I remember that feeling very well. I have a long history of that frustration directly affecting my actions, and honestly, substantially more than any other emotion. In my experience, frustration is my first indication that anger is approaching. I had a tendency to become another person in those moments. I am not violent, believe me, what was I doing throwing a pencil against a wall? In the present, I was throwing a 24 year old tantrum about my dissatisfaction in my current work accompanied by an understanding that I still had to do and stick with it to get to my next goals. I finally made it to the point I was gunning for, receiving an offer to transfer into the job I wanted in a subject area I’m truly excited to dive into and enjoy. Now I’m looking back and seeing the past few months for what they were. The tantrum affected me taking care of myself. I wasn’t paying attention anymore. At the same time, I’m not upset that the past few months felt like they did. I think I needed to take a break for a longer time to allow everything to slow down enough that I can see it better. What I see now is an opportunity to mature: A chance to give life the attention it deserves again, and accept the growing pains that come with a life lived. A chance to strengthen myself through discipline, something I honestly enjoy!

After speaking about this with my therapist, he provided a paradigm shifting insight: “It wasn’t a tantrum, it sounds like burnout.” I had been so critical of myself and my own behavior that I didn’t even consider that. This was a long period of time: 40 - 60 hours per week for 2+ years in a job I didn’t like and was not interested in. On top of that, I was actively implementing all of these new habits, lifestyle improvements and personal projects in my spare time. Of course I burned out! I had to give more credit to the effect of my environment as well: a mix of work from home, career angst, job dislike, and covid in general. All of those things got to me over time. He asked me to consider if I would be saying the same things about ‘tantrums’ that I’m saying to myself if I was speaking to a friend in the same situation. A simple exercise in self compassion, but one that many of us too often forget to do for ourselves when it matters. I never felt like I was doing enough, but he told me to consider how much I had done, and how wonderful it was. I had seen the glass as half empty, and instead of switching to just seeing it as half full, I remembered how beautiful the glass itself was, and how much I appreciated its contents. That’s the optimism I hold dear, and I was able to see it again. He had reminded me to think like myself! 

Honestly, as I think about it now, I did get pretty comfortable in that general sense of burnout and complacency. I can see why so many inhabit it. I feel this fear of giving things a shot again with fervor, not just trying but going into it the way I know I can. I don’t think it’s a complete fear of failure though. I look at what I need to work on, what I want to work on: the things that are important for my mind, my body, my career, my friendships, my family, and try in all those again with my understanding of where I’m at now and what I can, want, and will do. This is my personal duty to myself. The repercussions of these are a lot more real than they were in the past, maybe that’s just part of becoming a real adult. I’m accountable for all these things in my life because they’re all parts of my life. It’s all important, and I don’t want to do the important things wrong, but instead of trying like I normally do, I paused. I didn’t do anything. I chose inaction. It was all or nothing, and I chose nothing for this time. Like I said earlier, I am going to look at this past period as a rest, while allowing myself to see it for what it is, a rest that I need to wake up from. It’s time for me to trudge out of this metaphorical mud I’ve been sitting in, wash off my boots, and take a walk. Now, that’s easy to say, but in reality, It’s hard to get out of this mud, I find myself stuck in it everyday, some more than others. But I’m finding progress in the little things. The days where I get to check off my habits in my journal. The nights I get home from the gym and reward myself with a snack. Remembering and celebrating my loved ones birthdays. Writing letters to my parents again. Writing essays, just like I am now. As habit expert James Clear says in his book Atomic Habits: “We don’t rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems.” The small things we maintain in our lifestyle, regardless of the times and circumstances, are the foundation we rely on. It’s success over accomplishment. I’ll begin with having the flexibility to integrate the things I care about in my systems back into my day to day life, relaxing my grip on the ‘ideal’ structure I want in my life and instead see the day for what it is and work with it rather than against it. I can forgive myself rather than punish myself.

Life is full of moments and realizations like these, we can all recall them quite quickly. A “lesson learned” isn’t how I want to phrase this though. In life, we’re constantly trying, succeeding, failing, and trying again. We’ll never be perfect. I understood the lessons and meanings behind a lot of my habits, journaling practices, etc, yet I still let them go for a long period of time. I could have said my lesson was learned while I was originally in it, but then my practice dropped off, and I realized I had more to learn. This didn’t mean I was hopeless or failed or anything, it just reminds me that maybe I can’t think of it like I’ve “learned” this stuff, rather that I “applied” this stuff, found a result, and will try again with that knowledge in mind. Very agile. Perfect was never the goal in the first place, it’s just continuously learning and trying different ways to apply ideas on how we live our lives as human beings. In the words of Dr. Paul Kalanathi, “You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.” It’s not easy, trying and trying again, but I can say with certainty that I have never once regretted trying once more at those critical points where I felt the most frustration, fear or even pessimism (which as you know, is not the title of this blog!!). The lesson is constantly evolving, the question isn’t about the lesson to learn, it’s about the lesson to apply. That doesn’t say the lesson’s done, it includes all the steps after: result, feedback, introspection, updated understanding, and applying the new lesson once more. That sounds fun, don’t you think?

I’m very happy with where I’m at now, the time passed. I am beginning my new role as a Workforce Advisory Consultant, where my focus will now be dedicated to the people at my clients, rather than the money they’re making. While I don’t believe this is the end, it’s a big step toward working on projects and opportunities that are meaningful to me. I care about people and want them to be the center of my work, and now I get to do just that, and I’m very excited to learn more. I bought some new washi tape and dove back into my bullet journal, trying out new styles for old pages and am taking a new values based approach to my decision making that I’ll be writing more about in the future. I’ve been using my yoga mat again, and have become much more of a regular at the Crunch gym on Bowery. I got some new stationery to write to my mother. I was able to write this essay about something I felt embarrassed about for a long time. This is not my normal tone of writing, as you could tell by the content at the beginning, quite pessimistic if you ask me. I was honestly ashamed of myself, felt like a failure to myself, but that’s the thing about shame, it can’t survive being spoken. In retrospect, a lot of my issues seem quite small and manageable, but I recognize how large they may have seemed in the moment. I forgive myself for it, and am owning it. I had to remind myself of that, and here we are. I feel lighter, my breathing has felt much nicer these past few weeks. I feel present. I’m checked in again, and I’m so excited about what’s next. It’s nice to be back!

This was yet another chapter of the continuously in-progress book of our lives. It wasn’t the most exciting or happy chapter, but it deserves its spot in my book just like all the others. A positive from all of it is I now know what it’s like to have a job that I truly despise, and will be able to recognize the red flags in my work earlier next time and set boundaries where I need them. The chapter was totally worth reading, it’s definitely a bit alternative when comparing to the others in my book. I’m not sitting here claiming that I’ve fixed everything or that I’m out of the woods. Trust me, I’m not. It’s mid April and I’m still having such a hard time getting up in the morning. Pushing back against built up complacency takes a lot of work and effort, but above all else, it takes compassion and forgiveness. I finally have space for those, and with them comes a wind of change which I’m learning to accept, in different ways, one day at a time. It’s the adventure of a lifetime, and I’m ready to fly again.

It feels great saying this again. Optimistically,

Jon