One Year of Unemployment

Writing this issue is pretty hard for me. Not because I’m writing this at 10:30pm, but because I had imagined it to be completely different. I quit my job one year ago and have stayed unemployed and 100% free since then. If things had turned out the way I had imagined, I would’ve been sharing how this year transformed me, how quitting was the best decision I ever made, how all my dreams came true because I had the courage to jump into the unknown.

No, this is not that story. Not one thing turned out the way I had imagined. I wasn’t presented with new opportunities. I couldn’t grab any freelance gigs. I couldn’t produce a new income source. I did not travel, I did not take up interesting projects, I did not try many new things.

The year began with high hopes but as it progressed, I met with a series of road blocks. Hitting a wall almost became a second nature. I wrote a massive course but that still isn’t published after 8 months. Some projects were delayed, others got rejected. I couldn’t find good job openings and when I did find one, I couldn’t score.

This year, I have been discouraged, disappointed, irritated, anxious, lonely, lost. But hold up! This is not a sad story. It is just an incomplete story.

I am still as hopeful and confident as when I was in the beginning. I have clarity of exactly what I want — freedom (time, location, money independence). I am aware that my goal is not easy and cannot be bound to a timeframe, even though a year seems a lot. I have realization that even my worst case is most people’s best case — I can get back to a job any day I want.

While my days weren’t as novel, I kept up with my habits quite well. I wrote more than 50 essays. I kept up with my gym routine and am fitter than ever. I quit social media entirely. And yes I couldn’t travel the way I wanted and to the places I wanted, but I did take an adventurous trip with my friends.

So this year wasn’t all that bad. It was just different from what I had anticipated. Let me also share the reasons why things didn’t work out the way I had hoped.

First, I have actively rejected 99% of the opportunities out there. My previous job was already very good, way better than all my peers. The sole reason I quit was to find something better. Not marginally better, but monumentally better. If I was to take up a similar job with roughly the same pay and roughly the same flexibility, I wouldn’t have quit in the first place.

Now with that mindset, I think you can guess the number of options I have in front of me. Not many. So scoring is a secondary problem, finding the right thing is the struggle for now.

Second, the goal of freedom cannot be bound to any timeframe, let alone 365 days. It is easy to imagine an arbitrary timeline of how the future will unfold. But when you get to work, you are faced with reality. And the reality is that it can take any amount of time to attain freedom. I have no control over it. I will try as long as I can. If I succeed, I succeed. If I don’t, I don’t.

It is a discouraging thought. But I find comfort in knowing that things have always worked like this in the past. For me, things have always taken way more time that one would deem apt.

It took a year-and-a-half from the day I started learning app development to the day I landed a job. It took 2 years to realize that I did not want to do this job and then another year to actually quit.

It took 8 months to write a single blog post. It took 2 years to write that programming course. It took a whole year to learn to perform Mayur Asana. It took 6 years from inspiration to actualization of my nomadic vacation.

Maybe I am slower than others, or maybe it is natural to take that much time. But no matter the amount of time it took, it has always been worth it. Every single one of these experiences has had huge impacts. It paid off well for the time it took.

In the end, when we look back, we don’t care for the timeframe, we don’t remember the details. In the end, we are able to see the complete picture and everything makes perfect sense.

But this, this is not the end. This is an incomplete story. It was hard to share because it doesn’t make sense right now. But I assure you, it will. And when it does, I’ll be right here narrating it to you.

Good night!
Aachman