Doubt

At the moment, things are on hyper drive with my life. The Job Fair in school seems like an appropriate wake up call, to shake me from this pragmatic life I've been leading. I have started to forget that in a few months time I will no longer be returning to the life in the academe, but enter an entirely new pool of people: the employable unemployed.

As seniors, well for some of us myself included, we are starting to suffer from senioritis. A so called condition, as it was coined by upperclass men, describing the last year in any institution. Symptoms include feeling nostalgic, not doing work because you're lazy, experiencing superior tendencies over other students and the like. I've been breezing through classes, not minding lectures and just submitting the bare essentials. I plateaued into a place where I was comfortable enough with my status as an eligible graduate. 

But things change.

A few days ago I decided to revisit my third year resume [aka Version 1] and tried to do the necessary adjustments. With pride I added "Marketing Trainee" in the Work Experience section, and words like productive and hard-working as positive characteristics describing me. I thought that this would give me a golden ticket to the world of corporate high ways and the great big moolah. Unfortunately, false pride falls fast. M. proof-read my Version 1, due to my request, because I wanted an outsider's view on my market value.  

I was wrong.

I am apparently, given the state of Version 1, not as unique as I thought. Generic was the term used. This doesn't sit well with me. I am not generic. I am  anything but. If there is one thing my experiences in life has taught me, it would be uniqueness. No one else can exactly talk the way I do or act the way I do. But the person people have come to know, the person I am, wasn't translated to that piece of paper called the curriculum vitae. Version 1 did not adeptly represent me as a candidate to numerous prestigious positions. So thus Version 2 was born and subsequently Version 2.2 and Version 2.3.

The final product: Version 2.4.2

As I was under going this process of subtracting, adding and revising I was filled with self-doubt. In all my four years in the Ateneo I had thought I was building a brand that numerous corporations would die to have and own. I thought I was an eligible candidate, not only to graduate but also to succeed in any field of my choosing. I was worthy. But whenever my resume would be rejected by my proof readers because the words used were too flowery or too generic or too stale, a small crack would form in the wall of self-confidence I've accumulated in the past years. Every comment or highlighted line was like a nail being driven to a cross I felt too heavy to bear. 

The message was: I was not enough. 

However a passage from Paolo Coelho's blog today reassures me that self-doubt is not something to be feared or rejected. It is essential in this journey of life. It is the initial spark to advancement, and not regression depending on how you handle it. I end today, not with the anxiety I felt last night but a joyful blessedness. 

You know why?

I feel a humble triumph in knowing I have a job interview on Monday. All the hard work placed in that CV has paid off thanks to my friends, love and family. The lesson learned here is that pride is a lonely fellow to be had, and doubt is a essential friend in this peripety of life. 

Never cease doubting. When the doubts stop it is because you have stopped journeying.
( Brida )

- Paolo Coelho