PERSONAL

14

1,832

A Frantic, Rambling About Rethinking My Life

3 years ago1,754 words

Should I get a job??

I just had a video call with the friend I occasionally do those with, who's probably my only real friend at the moment. Or I mean there are a couple of others, maybe, but we rarely talk. I don't even talk to this friend often, though - it's been weeks since our last call - but whatever!

We met on the Psychology uni course I did - we were in the same dissertation group - after which my path was disrupted by the brain surgery, while she went on to do a Master's in some kind of data science area. I got back into games dev because I couldn't leave the house after the surgery, while she got an opportunity with one of those 'get women into tech' programs, which has now led to an upcoming job as a data analyst for which she'll be earning more than double my meagre scrapings in her starting position.

Which... got me thinking. Though not as depressively as might be expected!

Maybe I should be doing something else?

It's certainly something that's been at the back of my mind for a long time, but I suppose it always felt really abstract, and there were so many holes in my knowledge and experience that the phantom conceptions I had about what such a thing would even entail were so vague and frightening that I just couldn't imagine being able to cope with it.

Having a job has always been this big, scary thing, mostly for anxiety-related reasons. I've recently spent some time every day browsing through - and in rare cases engaging with - the Reddit communities ∞ r/socialanxiety ∞ and ∞ r/AvPD ∞ (Avoidant Personality Disorder), and while there are many posters in those who do have jobs, there are also many who either currently don't have one, or have never had one, for anxiety-related reasons.

Though it's darkly comical seeing threads where for example the poster frets about being too old to be getting a first job at the venerable age of 18, while here I am, almost 34 without ever being formally employed.

Which I can't imagine wouldn't impede me were I to search for one. Right?

And yet... One of the enlightening things this friend has talked about is how frustratingly incompetent her coursemates generally are, and how they're going to end up in the same role as her despite it. She - like me - is the sort who, when put in a group, will end up doing most of the work while others slack off, and it all makes me wonder how much of the workforce is made up of mediocre slackers - C and D students - considering it's always seemed to be the majority when doing group work in school and uni. Plus they made up the majority in the grade distributions.

So would I do better than I expect? Would I be a better worker than most if I'm the sort who'd actually put the effort in?

I mean, I'm putting all this effort into the games that I make, by myself, with nobody whipping me to do any of it. I'm self-motivated and at least relatively competent. I'm very likely more skilled at programming than my friend, considering our relative experience and what she's told me about the assignments she's done, and she's apparently qualified for a job.

Though I can't help but wonder whether that's at least partly because she's a diversity hire - a woman in tech, and a foreign one at that - who could tick boxes that I as a white male couldn't. She has an advantage whereas I have a disadvantage in this 'woke' age. Maybe. There are no "get white men into tech" programs, obviously.

But I'm so naive and inexperienced with the real world that I just don't know about any of this stuff. It all feels a world away when I'm alone in my creative cocoon. It felt so much more real when talking about it with her, when someone I personally know talked about these actual experiences rather than just hearing strangers hint at them online or in fictional media.

I suppose it's like how in school, I didn't exactly get great grades - I never got bad grades, but I cared more about making games than paying attention to schoolwork - but I formed an ill-fated 'best-friendship' in uni which encouraged me to get mostly A grades and up, to be one of the top handful of students on the course of hundreds, because that friend was similarly studious. For me at least, it's much easier to walk a certain path if I 'm walking it with someone. And I've never had anyone to walk along the job path with before.

Now that I kind of do, I'm wondering, for maybe the first time, whether having a job is something I could really do, something I should do...

I don't know though. She's mostly been talking in the hypothetical about a job she's got coming up, but which she's not actually had any direct experience with yet. I've seen many people on the social anxiety subreddits talking about jobs they've started, but quit due to an inability to cope. Will she be ranting, pained, a few months from now due to difficulties as a result of her own anxieties? Would I be the same? I mean, I barely coped at university. I ended up attempting suicide. Maybe I'm just not mentally well enough?

(I suspect based on our relative experiences that she'd cope better than me, though. She's at least had work-like experiences; I've not.)

Would it be easier if I moved somewhere near where she'd be, so we could meet up and talk every so often and I wouldn't be as suffocated by isolation? She's not currently in the UK, but the job's based here, and she'll be moving to the middle of some city for it (though it sounds like it's going to be largely remote work anyway). I've been intending to move out for ages, but since there's no specific place I need to be near for a job, the biggest uncertainty regarding that has been where to move to. I had nothing motivating me to choose anywhere in particular, so I never chose anything, and I'm still here with my parents. So I wonder whether moving within walking distance of a friend would help me mentally, or whether we'd just not end up meeting up much anyway and I'd resent my desperate decision and feel worse.

The thought of moving in together is something we talked about a while back, fruitlessly, so I can't help but wonder about that again. She hasn't decided on anywhere yet. I don't know if either of us would actually want that though, especially since she has a boyfriend who's not me (though I think he's in another country?). I'm not interested in her as a potential partner, and I wouldn't want such a desire to undesirably develop. I'm no catch.

I don't know. My mind's buzzing!

Every day I feel so... conflicted. On the one hand, I love what I'm doing; I greatly value the autonomy, and I'd psychologically starve if unable to engage in creative work, which most jobs don't revolve around. And I really, really don't want to leave Atonal Dreams unfinished. But I'm also aware of how much time it's taking, how old I am, how pathetic my life situation seems on paper. How I go months without leaving the house or having a meaningful conversation. Having one like the one I just had feels like a huge transformation just because they're so rare. Would I be so much mentally better if I lived in the real world instead of in my head?

But of course there's money... Single bedroom flats where she's looking for accommodation cost around what I've been earning in a month lately, and that's without bills, food, etc. I do have a decent amount in savings, but I don't really want to eat through all that (but what else would I ever do with it if I just never used it? It's like the Megalixir I can't bring myself to use to survive the superboss because I might need it some other time).

But what if I do a Kickstarter soon? Is there any hope of that bringing in enough money? If it does, I could justify continuing to do what I'm doing for a while longer. If it didn't, could I? Could I even manage that kind of a campaign, mentally? Would it be easier if I lived near or with a real-world friend who could keep me from getting entirely lost in my head for months?

I suppose my main thought at the moment is that I should finish Atonal Dreams before looking for any kind of job, probably. If nothing else, I'd be able to point an employer to a finished, published, self-made project rather than something I started but never finished. I mean MARDEK and Memody are already finished games, but I feel like Atonal Dreams is maybe on another, more impressive level, or something. And I've poured too much into it to give up now. I WANT to finish it!

I also wonder whether I could or should do something like part-time work or volunteering to mentally prepare myself for real employment, to gauge whether or not I could cope. I feel though that time's ticking to some degree since this situation with this friend presents some potential that won't be around forever. Maybe it's just because it's so fresh in my mind.

I don't know. I'm rambling to myself, mostly! Maybe I'll look at this tomorrow and feel completely different, maybe hopeless again... But that's why things like this snap me out of the stupor so sharply. I'm acutely aware of how damaging the isolation is to my mind and mood, and how beneficial it is to get out of my head and interact with the world. I just usually don't have any people or any opportunities, and this feels like one.

Obviously I should at least sleep on it before making any big decisions... I should probably go and do that now.

...I still haven't even decided on which new PC to get because I've been so stuck in a foggy-minded rut for so long!