Failure

I'm currently feeling like a bit of a failure.  By now I was supposed to be living a wonderful life in a new city with an amazing job, a lovely boyfriend and lots of fabulous friends.

Ok...I knew this wouldn't be the case.  I only left uni four months ago and for most of that time I've been working/travelling so really it's not like I've already failed.  The only thing is I, and many many other graduates I know, can barely even find jobs they want to apply for.  This is pure madness.  It makes you wonder whether or not you did something wrong.

I was reminded of a quote from Carl Jung: "Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and epecially on their children than the unlived life of the parent."  I fully relate to this quote because, whilst I love my dad, he is all about the grass is greener.  He was in his early 20's when he had me and has struggled for money for many years.  Recently his hours at work have been slashed from five days to two as the woman he replaced has returned from maternity leave.

We argue.  A lot.  We are just too similar and this is making my transition from university to consistant job seeker/dreamer even harder.  I am pleased to see my friends are in the same sorry state.  No, pleased isn't the right word....comforted?  Maybe.


A friend said today: "I was thinking yesterday whilst taking out my failure to get a job out on the treadmill how you could do an 'unemployed graduates' gym class where the instructer shouts things like "you should have worked harder/applied EARLIER/done more extra curricular!!"  This is a fair point.  In fact maybe I should turn to excercise as a way to work out my frustration.  I believe my dad's girlfriend has recently moved her treadmill into our shed.  I could definitely work up enough of a sweat to not notice the cold...I'm just not much of a runner.

It's a sorry state of affairs.  All I know is I don't want to get to my 40's and wish I'd travelled/had children/not had children so early/got the career I wanted/lived abroad.... God know's what!  I figure rather than worrying about what my failure will do to my future, and how it will effect Lily (the daughter I really have no plan's to have...if caught though that's the bame of choice...) or indeed my career.  Most importantly myself.

Needless to say I found a more encouraging quote: "Don't be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid."

Thank you Keats, I'm hoping you'll inspire me and also the people reading this.  Maybe we can be failures together then?