How I learned to stop worrying and love the bottom
Getting fired is the best thing that could happen to any of us. That way, we'd quit treading water and do something with our lives.
Tyler Durden, Fight Club
So I lost my job in November. Anybody who knows me personally (or at least follows my personal blog) knows what a vicious roller-coaster this has made of my life. Anybody who has to compete in the modern American job market knows this. Every interview is like a new cage that you stretch and squeeze yourself into, taking a deep breath and puffing your chest out. You're surrounded by fake-smiling HR managers and department heads who really don't give a crap about your personal strengths or where you see yourself in ten years, and you're dancing for your life against the fifteen people outside who want your job. They may have a sadder story than you, or a better resume, or bigger boobs. In any case, the odds are against you every time.
Being fired for no good reason, by people who don't value their employees, well, it's hard. It makes you feel worthless. Hopeless. Hapless. You're lazy, you're inadequate, you have no future. You should have done more, been more, worked harder or smiled wider or jumped through whatever hoop your boss dangled in front of you in order to keep the awful job you had. Because it was a job, and a terrible job is better than no job. Because you look around and you see people working and moving forward, and you feel like you've already lost the race.
Then I woke up one day, and realized it wasn't a race.
Then I was walking through a used bookstore one afternoon and saw a reprint of Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk sitting on a shelf next to some discount Sylvia Plath. Then I remembered I'd never finished reading it, so I picked it up.
But this isn't a post about Fight Club. I'm not going to tell you what I thought it was about. I'm not going to tell you how it compares to the movie. (It's my favorite movie, by the way.) I'm not going to tell you about the state of post-modern man, or the plight of the male narrative in our deconstructionist society. Because halfway through it, dog-earring passages about chemical burn kisses and human butt-wipe and men with holes in the meat of their cheeks, I remembered what being unemployed has taught me.
Nobody can tell you what you're worth.
Not your boss, not your dad, not your teacher or your congressman. You are worth more than the sum of your resume or your college credit hours, your car or the name sewn into the back of your jeans. You're an individual and you have the right to be here on the planet you were born on. If the people around you don't see it, then you don't need them. Find people that do.
You can't function at a job where people don't respect you.
You deserve better than to work for people that degrade you. No matter how badly you need a job, it's not worth harassment or discrimination of any kind. You can't get ahead working for people that don't value employees and don't respect their labor rights.
Nobody owns you.
Getting fired made me stop and take a hard look at my life and all the things in it. I realized I was doing a lot of things just to be nice and blend in. Cute shoes, nice skirts, haircuts that I didn't really like. I felt fake. I wanted to punch holes in my face and throw out my high-heels. I took up shadowboxing and got rid of every obnoxious thing I owned. I like wearing black tuxedo jackets and combat boots. I don't care what Cosmopolitan thinks I should be wearing. I like writing weird things. This is who I am.
It's your life.
If the guy down the street doesn't like it, that's his problem. Do the things that make you happy, in your own way, at your own speed. If you don't care about how you live, nobody will.
It can always be worse.
Okay, so your car died and you have no job. You don't live in a hovel without clean water or food. You have a home and people who care about you. You have rights and protection. This is the First World, so quit crying. And when you're back on your feet, go find a way to send a few dollars to people who don't have the luxuries you do.
No, I'm not touting personal enlightenment. I'm just trying to survive every day, like everybody else these days. It isn't the end of the world, just another step in it. No matter what happens, I'll make it, you'll make it, and we just have to hang in there until we do.
