lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate
Yesterday I was walking down the stairs with an empty plate in hand when I felt my foot step on something hard with a loud crash. In my surprise I jumped off the stairs onto the floor below, somehow landing on my two feet with plate in hand, only to get an earful from my mom about not paying attention and destroying the kettle she was going to take upstairs for storage. Fortunately I was unharmed, but this recurring episode reminds me how much of my time I spend in a trance, completely oblivious to what's in front of me even when I'm not on my phone.
I reached 100 job applications today, less than I anticipated having after a month of searching, though 80 of them I made in the last two weeks. All those applications have landed me 10 rejections and a grand total of zero callbacks. I'm trying not to worry about things outside my control and focus on what I can change, but at this rate it looks like I'm going to need hundreds, maybe even thousands of applications before I can have a decent shot at employment.
I knew that finding a job in this economy would take many applications before I started. I applied to hundreds of internships when I was in school and only ever heard back from the ones where I met a recruiter in person at a career fair or recruiting event. But feeling the sheer magnitude of sifting through hundreds of applications (and not even knowing what I'm looking for) is enough to make me want to give up.
Some days I struggle to find roles to apply for, so I relent and apply to some software engineering / developer ones. I can't decide if this is a good idea. On one hand it widens the pool of potential positions, but on the other I'm almost certain I would hate all of them. Is landing a job I'm sure I'll hate worse than staying unemployed? I haven't figured that one out yet. I do know the more time passes, the more desperate I'll get, so I'm hoping I can get it taken care of sooner rather than later.
