Yesterday the email came.
I wanted to write to you personally… appreciate your interest… competitive applicant pool…
My heart sank a bit. On my laptop, I had a few tabs open to other job postings. I wanted to get back on that horse and start applying again. I was chastising myself for letting up on the applications as I narrowed in on this position that I didn’t get. I was chastising myself for letting up on the gas, for not sprinting through the finish line. I was wondering what in my credentials and experience was missing, what I said wrong, when, and to whom. If I’m not the best fit, I wanted to know why. In this mindset, I realized I wasn’t going to be productive. I certainly wasn’t going to be able to write a positive and confident cover letter. Thinking I might distract myself with the joys of where I live, I left the apartment and went for a walk (ironically in the very parks this organization works to preserve).
It, the walk, wasn’t as effective as I thought it would be. I had wrongfully anticipated that my questions and ruminations would cease as soon as I felt the sun on my face and the saw the beauty of the bay. The questions didn’t cease: am I aiming too low? was I too wishy washy on that question about donor cultivation? am I aiming too high? did they read that one blog post about liking my life outside of work better than my life inside of work? did I come off as desperate? too cocky?
There were moments on the walk when I didn’t perseverate. There were moments when my mind didn’t race and stumble, race and stumble, race and stumble in its search for a smooth path with fewer boulders and gullies. I watched as one of those massive container ships loaded with hundreds of shipping containers passed under the Golden Gate Bridge – it might not be how I define beauty, but it’s a spectacle to see things on that scale. I noticed the smell of a pine tree as I passed underneath it. I appreciated a red brick building with clam-shell white trim that stood out among the other buildings.
But mostly, I wanted to write. I wanted to capture the quick vacillations of my mind – the switches from stubborn immaturity to self-criticism to defeat to plucky determination. I wanted to acknowledge that among my first reactions, I was saying “fuck you and your job, I don’t need you.” Oh how our childish selves fold their arms, stomp their feet, and pout. Of course that’s immature. Not only do I need a job (maybe not that job), but I still like the organization. If I had a job, I’d consider supporting them. Mostly, my thinking was centered on what I might have done wrong. And that’s how most of us react to every type of rejection, right? It’s not personal, yet if one strives to be authentic, it feels very personal. I did my best to show you who I am and what I have to offer. In the end, you chose differently.
For part of my walk, I was feeling petulant and torn. My petulance stemmed from this notion of not being accepted for who I am. It began with some mild worry that something I’ve written tipped the scales away from me. I’ve been writing in this space for over four years. I say a lot of things. I have over 1,000 posts. I’ve written about jealousy, insecurity, love, loss, depression, and anxiety. I’ve written about going out to bars. I’ve written about being an anti-capitalist. I’ve written about my support for reproductive rights. I’ve written about peeing with the door open and metaphorically crapping the bed. Any one of those things could be admired, laughed at, pitied, or found to be offensive. I try to shine a light under the hood of my thinking in an attempt to better understand how this messy and inefficient engine runs – and by extension how other messy and inefficient engines run. It’s not always pretty but it’s usually honest.
The debate in my head was pretty simple. While I don’t think I’ve written anything that would (or should) prevent me from getting a job or finding a relationship, I can’t rule out that it does. I can’t rule out that somewhere I’ve spilled gasoline and I’m looking for it with a match. Google my name and there’s a good chance my blog will be in the top results. If I have concerns that what I write could prevent me from getting what I want (or what I need), the logical thing to do would be to hide everything until I’ve secured those things. This is where feeling torn, feeling petulant, and feeling deluded comes in.
I felt torn because I don’t think I should have to hide who I am to secure a job or a relationship. Moreover, I would feel dishonest doing so. I’ve had enough jobs and relationships where that type of initial coyness or opacity has only led to soul-sucking disappointments and stalled or steaming breakdowns on the side of the road. In my thinking, the best way to avoid the honeymoon hangover, to avoid the buyer’s remorse over the lemon we chose is to be as transparent as possible, is to take a warts and all approach to relationships and life. I yam what I yam.
I felt petulant because I understand all too well that the rules are different for people like me (a relative nobody with an outsized conscience) compared to people in power. Nowhere has this been more obvious than in the behavior of a certain former president. Here I am worrying about whether or not that one time I wrote “‘fuck you and the horse you rode in on’ to the ice cream truck that didn’t wait for me as I sprinted and tripped over my untied shoelaces – arm held out waving a dollar bill” will prevent me from getting a job while he said “grab them by the pussy” or “I could shoot someone in the middle of fifth avenue” or countless other awful things and was elected president. Just last week I was working on a blog post (but didn’t finish) about just how unjust this system is. Very recently, a prominent tech executive very publicly tweeted he’d like the San Francisco supervisors to die a slow death. I’m quite certain were I to share such a sentiment on this blog, I’d have a very real reason to think this blog might be detrimental to achieving my goals of future employment and possible companionship. Oh the security, leverage, and untouchability of power and wealth that then gets mislabeled as genius or business acumen.
As I walked and tried to put the breaks on both of those trains of thought (feeling torn and feeling petulant). I began to recognize this creeping sense of delusion, self-importance, and self-aggrandizement. I’m not important enough or interesting enough for people to wade through this blog… and yet that’s precisely my worry. It’s not that I worry they’ll read everything and conclude that I’m an asshole who is unfit for the job or I’m someone so mentally enmeshed in his own anxieties and thinking that I won’t be a good partner. I’m worried that they won’t read the whole thing and come to those conclusions. We live in a culture and time where context and nuance have died slow and quiet deaths. If one was to read this entire blog and walk away with a one-dimensional opinion of me – so be it. That, I could accept (or write off). My worry is that they’ll read the one blog post where I said I hated my dog and called him racist because he lunged at a black man who waved hello at us in a park… and in reading that, they’ll assume that I hate dogs or black men or friendly people waving in parks or that I once worked in Pennsyltucky raising racist dogs.
I returned from my walk and responded to the email that had let me know I didn’t get the position. I said I’m glad they found a good candidate (I am) and that I’d appreciate feedback if they can give it (I would).
I softened and accepted the self-criticism. I have to get better at not putting all of my eggs into one basket. I acknowledged that the problem is that not only do I like knowing where all of my eggs are, but I begin to really appreciate the basket as I place each one into it with the care and attention of putting baby ducks in a box lined with soft grass and a small cup of water. Much like my experiences with dating and spirituality/Buddhism, I’m at a point in life where I prefer to focus deeper and more deliberately on fewer things. This serves me well in the later stages of relationships, but may hold me back in the initial stages of courtship.
Of course, one of the bigger challenges with rejection is the self-doubt that creeps in and lingers like a bad fart. In the common narrative of our business world – innovators and leaders are often portrayed as having a dogged determination in the face of setbacks. They’re seen as people who shrug off, shout down, or dismiss criticism. They antagonize and sometimes demonize their detractors. So much of our narrative around success lionizes confidence and worships at the feet of people with oversized bootstraps. We build monuments to those who chart their own course, who go it alone, who don’t waste their energy on processing failure. In that harsh light and by those standards, it’s easy to feel one isn’t cut out for this… to pare down one’s ambitions and settle for something safer or less demanding.
For me, the biggest problem with taking risks (in moving, in changing careers, in love, and in life) is that I never know if I’m on the right path. I tend to check the map more often than I need to. I tend to look back and forward and in every direction for markers of the familiar and road signs from which I can orient my time, distance, and latitude. As a child, I needed and sought approval and validation. As an adult with minor abandonment issues, I’ve built a go-it-alone roadster with a functioning compass that I seldom trust. It’s easy for me to let the inner critic run roughshod over logic, reason, and self-compassion. It’s easy for me to look around at the people who “have it easier” and the people who “have it harder” and then struggle to figure out where I fit in, which feelings are valid, and what progress looks like.
I ran through all of these things (feelings and thoughts) in the hour or so after being told they chose another candidate. I ran through all of them again adding in a few mixed metaphors in the hours it’s taken me to write this. I’m not sure there’s much value in what I’ve written and even less sure if there’s any eloquence. Worse still, in doing so, I may have written some things that will be taken out of context or hinder my chances at the next job or relationship. For now, I’ll stay on this path (applying, seeking, living, writing). My only hope is that I’ll know when to pull over and ask for directions before I’ve gone too far and am running low on gas.