Dear Scott,

I can understand how hard it is to focus on the positive right now, and I can related to the uncertainty you feel about the future, but I am absolutely sure that the way you felt when you were doing the last job is your best guidance to not taking it as a permanant position.

It isn’t easy to focus on the positive when you are depressed, but I believe it will be really helpful if you can do this. In your second paragraph you start out by saying you have been temping and you enjoyed your last few jobs – what did you enjoy about them? Is there a possibility that you can find more temp jobs like the ones you liked? I think it is not helping you when you project negative feelings into the future – perhaps you can trust the universe and believe that when one door closes, another opens and it it always for the best.

I hope this helps.

Love and peace,

Marilyn

Hi Midge,

What you’ve written above describe my current situation perfectly. I’ve spent the last 8-10 years working non-stop, without paying any attention to my personal life.

After putting in and withdrawing my resignation thrice, I finally had the courage to go through with it. All through the process, one part of my mind kept asking, “what are you going to do with all this spare time you are heading towards??”

I also identify with Scott when he says he keeps changing his mind and questioning his decisions. When I finally put in my papers, I felt relief. I am still serving my notice period – but every now and then, doubt creeps back up – I question whether I’ve done the right thing or whether I should stick it out even though I’m not enjoying myself. The thought of being out of work gives me great anxiety – at the same time, I have another offer on hand and I feel reluctant to take it on.

I’m unsure how to make good, sound decisions anymore, with regard to work.

Any advice?

Hello Scott (and everyone on this topic),
I am new here, just found this website because my work life has come crashing down around me this week, and I was online searching….for something,you know that search for “something” when you don’t even know what it is.
. I have no actual advice personally for you, but wanted to tell you that if nothing else; just hearing you describe your situation echoed so much the place I find myself in now, and it just felt so good to not be alone in it. I realize your post is a few weeks old now and It is my great hope that you made a decision and have felt strong in it.
The situation you described is so awful, you feel so kicked down that you literally can’t even decide which slice of bread to put the peanut butter on and which slice to put the jelly on right.? Much less make some kind of important decision that will impact your daily life and your ability to eat and pay for a roof over your head. UGH, its awful. My workplace of close to 20 years has called me out and told me that I have not pulled my weight there this year and now I can leave or stay with “restructuring” and a pay cut. Which is what I believe its all about to begin with, they want someone to be paid less. But to have my work that that I couldn’t have put more into being called into question has cast a spell on me almost! I feel so low that I can barely hold my head up. I saw none of this coming. And it seems the restructuring will involve a type of work that is just so far beyond what I feel capable of right now, and for even less than I was already making. And I’ve barely been making it. Total paycheck to paycheck living situation already. Now I can’t decide if I want my self worth more, to tell them they are wrong and I am leaving, or stay and deal with my near -paralyzing fear of being without a job and not two nickels to rub together. I know in every crises there is also opportunity, but oh this stuff hurts. And life is too short.
What did you end up doing, if I may ask? And more importantly; how do you feel about which decision you have made? I am not glad you and the other participants have to go through this, but I will say knowing we are not alone in the not terribly productive “depressed-with-fears-and-need-to-make -important-decisions category” ..helps. So much right now.
Best,
Donna

Hi Scott,
I am so sorry for the delay in my response back, I hadn’t even seen your note until last night. So this (what you wrote) is now a little time ago, and I am assuming that you ended up making some kind of final (for now) decision, as it sounds like there were all sorts of deadlines…
I do not think you are going crazy at all, with all the back and forth, I think (and this is probably advice for myself too as much as for you) that the indecision is like a virus that gets into your system, because your immunity gets depressed, and then it keeps on replicating, just like a bug does. So just like getting over a flu, you have to build up your inner strength. There will always be challenges and struggles no matter what choice anyone makes. Making a choice almost never means that now it will all magically get easy. I suppose it is actually a blessing to have some options, as some people in the world never even have any. But I also know very well the paralyzing effect. Just like I need to know, you do too; you are not alone. It’s scary when any move seems to take you further away from what you think you want. The truth is though that if your immune system is boosted up, in this case meaning; your sense of yourself and your ability to trust yourself, then you can conquer anything. You can make a decision and make it work for you, no matter which path you choose. Did you end up 100% leaving the current place? And if so; have you found some peace with it?
I love the Beatles song lyric “There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you are meant to be”. I keep saying it to myself over and over. I have made the decision that I will stay in my job with the nasty little vindictive pay cut for the summer, and then probably come the Autumn, leave. Try to save up some money, in the meantime. Try to stop wishing they would just fire me, as that is surely the easy way out, but one that would only be bad for me later down the road, trying to get another job. I am telling myself that if my inner strength is hearty, then any move I make will be the right one. And that maintaining my inner strength for the next few months, working at a place where I don’t feel at all valued now, is going to challenge that, but I absolutely must find the way for it not to.
So many simply quotes occur to me, such as “Happiness (or contentment, rightness) is a choice” . As in you just make the choice. And face what you have to, but realize that no one can actually take away anything from you if you’ve made the decision to keep it. We humans do seem to need to change things up from time to time. We rarely want to go backwards, we want ,on a deep level to go forward, find the new. I wish it just all didn’t tap us out so badly; feeling scared of where this pull takes us. It helps me to keep on thinking the truth of all of this job stuff, like the truth about anything is really very simple.
That it is the little voices in our head that keep running interference, not letting us listen to the one deep voice of the simple truth or fact. This is what makes us feel we are losing our sanity from time to time. 🙂 Maybe that voice was speaking to you when you said after giving notice that you felt happy then?
I don’t know where you are, I am sure it is way far away geographically from where I am (you said “”rang the agency” among other things that make me think UK or Australia or a place like that) I am here on the east coast of the USA, (we we say “called the agency” 🙂 ) but it gives me strength to know you are out there somewhere and though far far away, we do understand the geography of this job indecision as though we are at the very same “desk”!
Wishing you the absolute best of luck. I plan to take a lot of deep breathes, every day, work on shutting up all those little nagging voices. Hope you can and will as well.
Cheers and Light, Donna