worthless – In my world

Sometimes I wonder if I should just retire and forget everything. But I’m too young to do so. If I retired my pension would be quite small. I’m a healthy person and I have no serious problems that could affect my daily life. Every time I see someone who has got a job through an internship or got some great experiences from something, I get this worthless feeling about myself. Other people get things done and all I’m doing is thinking about it. They are also given a chance. If I was offered a job, for example, I would consider taking it. Things like that only happen to others.

You shouldn’t compare yourself to others but in some things, you can’t help it. For me, it’s design skills. I wish I was as confident in it as I am with writing. I have this thought in the back of my head that someone is saying, “even I could do that” Someone actually said that about a photograph I took once. What worries me about my designs is the opinion that it isn’t anything special. I had the same feeling when I got feedback from the teacher about an assignment in graphic design at Helsinki Design School. It was just a feeling and it doesn’t mean they really meant it that way. Now when I see work from current students, I feel even worse because the works are actually good. They’ve had ideas I would never have thought of. In the end, it’s the clients who choose who they want to hire and not what you’re teacher have told you about your assignments. I can’t see anyone hiring me though because my work isn’t amazing. Only average and no one wants to pay for something they can do themselves.

It’s kind of silly to retire when I haven’t done much. Or maybe having unfinished business is the better description. I feel useless and unwanted when it comes to working. You’re either wanted for an internship nor part-time work. Not getting any work experience in your own field is even worse. I have done another job application that isn’t in my field but I don’t know if that will change one bit. I suck at writing applications because I never know what to write. It’s so stressful so I wish I could retire from job search altogether. That’s probably the only thing I want to retire from. But as long as I’m at the age that I can work, I have the obligation (or forced) to do the job searching thing. All you can do is keep on trying and hope for the best.

Maybe I should make this a habit. Every, let’s say every Friday, I have a theme beginning with ‘Sometimes I feel so….” and then I write about that subject. But then again when I think about it, maybe I run out of ideas. That happens a lot. I’m just not good with keeping up a schedule. I just feel worthless. Which where I now come to.

The worthless part shows its ugly head when I’m suppose to do something important. Even making a phone call makes me feel I’m not up to it. No matter how I try to prepare, it always backfires. Things work in my head but when I should them, I just give up.
Last time I felt worthless were some days ago. I was supposed to go to a few companies and ask for a work practise place. It’s like to get to know a profession and see how they work. Too difficult to explain in English. Anyway, it’s part of the career coaching thing. So I went there and I just couldn’t do it. I lost my nerve like I always do. I don’t know why I make it so difficult. I just can’t walk inside a company just like that. If that’s awful, calling a stranger is no walk in the park either. It’s also an introvert thing. If there’s a technology I could live without, that’s a phone. I could just use email to contact people.

I feel so worthless when I try to write a CV or a job application. I don’t know how to write about things I’m good at. Before you could just write what you’ve studied and so on but now you have to explain why you’re good at something. It difficult to make up the words and especially when it feels like you’re not good at anything. You can’t judge your own skills. I admire those who can. Reading those job ads and trying to understand what the companies really want. ‘What can you offer us?’ it’s one the most difficult questions. ‘Why should we hire you?’ is another. It would be easiest just to say ‘I don’t know’ to both but that’s not helpful if you want a job.

Back to the work practise. I found a couple of interesting companies online. One is about photography and the other is about video advertisement. I emailed them first because that’s the way I can handle things better. It worked before so why not now. I got a reply from the video one almost immediately and the email said I would contact this person. So today I thought of calling. I kept thinking what to say. My problem is I think too much. I’m too worried I’ll be misunderstood or something goes wrong. When I finally picked up the courage, there were no reply. It was quite late so I didn’t try again. On Monday it’s gonna start all over again. I just feel so worthless I can’t make calls to strangers. The reason is not just about introversion, it’s about lack of practise. It seems so easy for some to call to places but I’m such a coward. I really I hope I will get to make that call or I’ll miss my chance. Trying to get another place feels almost impossible.

Luckily feeling worthless is just temporary. Some suffer from it a longer time. Once you get over that feeling, you feel you really are worth it after all.