💾 Archived View for tilde.pink › ~collywobble › gemlog › 04_03_2022_understanding_myself.gmi captured on 2022-04-28 at 17:40:57. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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I've been looking for a job recently which is a task I always find really challenging. Well, I find the "looking" part to be quite straightforward: I find a load of job boards/companies I like the look of, bookmark them, then look at them twice a day. But getting enthusiastic enough to apply is harder. I used to find interviewing quite difficult, but nowadays I find the hardest part to be dealing with an offer. I end up paralysed by indecision, unable to process what I think about it. I'm pretty awful at making decisions anyway, and job offers are where I'm at my worst.
People ask me what my "gut feeling" is and I find myself struggling to think of an answer. I remember discussing this with a therapist some years ago. I'm familiar with the idiom, but I find myself unable to really answer the question. I try and assess my current emotional state to answer the question, but usually I feel anxious, nervous or just plain miserable. I can't tell if that's because of the situation at hand (in this case a job offer), or if it's my reaction to having to make a decision at all. I end up calling up friends and family to get their take, and then eventually I fall one way or another based on their interpretation of my feelings about the offer. It's always a painful process, and I think the root cause is that I really don't understand myself. It leads to this spiral of self-doubt and vacillation which just gets worse and worse. Part of it is probably because I used to think the "mind" is everything, and the body is basically just a dumb vessel for the mind. After doing a lot of reading around Buddhism some years ago I don't subscribe to that idea any more, but I think my mental processes have been shaped by it to an extent.
So anyway: I got a job offer. I've accepted it. I feel kind of numb. I hope I'm not the only person that goes through this (or actually, maybe I hope I am. It sucks.)