I told my parents that I have resigned my job, on the 14th of July of all days, and since then I have been feeling somewhat driftless because of their backlash. I have decided to go back to work, meaning that I am currently looking for a job, because I do not want to substantially go against my parents' will, since they are the ones providing housing for me.
I could definitely live by myself thanks to the money that I have saved, but the problem is that firstly, if any significant shock to the economy happened, which I think are not all that unlikely in the coming 3-4 years, then I would have to either deal with it on my own, or to return with my parents, in which case I would have to go find a job in a significantly worse economic environment. And secondly, after however long I spend out of regular work, I am not sure that I would manage to either make a living by myself based on my creative endeavors, or be able to return to the job market, because that would leave quite a big gap on my resume, on top of the lack of skills relative to any development in technology, and the general disdain I would have built for office jobs.
Call me a coward if you want, but it seems pretty irresponsible to me to have neither a social net, in the form of people ready to help you if you are struggling, nor a decent audience built online, which would make the transition to going all in on my creative endeavors more feasible. I quit my job in April of this year because I thought that maybe my parents would understand, but alas it seems that they don't, which I can understand, as they fled from their home country to escape a terrible economic situation after all.
The first few days after I took this decision to get back looking for a job were quite unpleasant, to say the least. I could barely sleep for one or two days, due to the general uncertainty and anxiety regarding finding a new job, and the administrative procedures to sign up as a job seeker, since I had to come up with some explanation as to why I suddenly left my job. Basically, my parents thought that I made a stupid decisions because I didn't feel comfortable saying that I want to go all in with my writing and my art, since after all I am not that good at those things, and do not have much of an audience right now. So they thought that I just threw away a good job, and made myself stick out as a terrible employee in the eyes of the job market for no good reason. The atmosphere at my home was quite sour, making it difficult to focus on much, which is why I mentioned above that I drifted for some days.
Afterwards it got better though. I started focusing on what I can actually control, which is applying for jobs on one hand, and remaining calm on the other.
Moreover, there are some benefits that came from this small and strange period of transition, back to a regular office job. I notice first of all that my attitude towards my dayjob was really, really poor. I spent much of my time at my first job feeling almost outraged that I had to spend time doing something that I didn't want. There's a part of me that felt that I was too intelligent and important to partake in those "mundane" affairs, too 'spiritual' to engage in meaningless work, that sort of thing. While there might be some truth to that, engaging with something that took 40 hours of my time per week with such an attitude was hardly constructive.
Secondly, because of that attitude, there would be many occasions where I would plainly waste my time, both during work, and outside of it, because I couldn't maintain the cognitive dissonance of thinking of myself as a good, conscientious creative, and the fact that I wasn't doing much of it. Ironically, an attitude that would accept my limited time, and dedicated one or two hours per day on my creative work would have resulted in a lot more time spent on it, than whatever I ended up doing.
In general, I am not good at using my time effectively, and it is time that I admit this, and do something about it. There will not be a magical period of my life where I will use most of my time effectively if I do not start now. Having less constraints changes the game of course, but it doesn't magically change your attitude, and I should have recognized the importance of my mindset much earlier on.
Thirdly, I have realized the (now obvious) importance of physical exercise, and especially moving around, and going outside, as part of my daily routine. I knew that those were important, but I didn't realize how much they led to my motivation and energy being drained over time, because those are things that you experience on the inside. The same way that you can't tell that you are falling asleep, because your capacity of detecting it is contingent on you being awake, likewise it's difficult to tell when you feel less and less energized, because you get used to it, and because frequent tiredness makes you bad at snapping out of it.
This is something I take very seriously now. Not just doing physical exercise in order to lift heavier things, but exercising, and designing my whole life, with the general purpose that I want to feel full of energy. In this regard, screens are doubly bad, not only because they make you sit inside all day, but also because they fragment your attention. Having a steady, calm attention is crucial to feel energized. When you fragment your attention, you start to feel overwhelmed and less motivated. When you're clear on your intent and can remain calm, then you waste less energy on secondary matters, and can fully dedicate yourself to the task at hand. I didn't think those things seriously enough, but the contrast of quitting and now getting back into my job shows me how important those things are.
And lastly, what these past two weeks have shown me is that I am bad at dealing with situations which are largely out of my control. I have experienced my despair and anxiety from the inside, as I was applying to jobs and felt completely uncertain about what would happen several weeks for now.
The situation hasn't changed as of writing this, but I do feel calmer about certain things, and at least it's become clear now that this general fear around the future shapes my life quite a lot. I write and think about societal collapse, and of course my beliefs about it haven't changed in only a few weeks, but now I can see how utterly unprepared I am, socially, financially, and more importantly, mentally and emotionally, to the kind of global disaster that will make life much harder for a lot of people, if not outright kill them due to the shortages of food and other things people need to survive.
If I am freaking about a job search, when I do not even need money right now, then how will I deal with societal collapse and my own mortality? It's clear that there is a lot to learn from this second round of job seeking, and getting back to an office job. A more constructive mindset to forge. A greater focus on what matters. And the understanding that now is the only time there is to build good habits, and start working on the things I want to make.
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Myself Introspection Officejob Anxiety
2026-07-31