After a series of layoffs with the crazy economy going up and down, with an uncertain future in general, I found myself in my kitchen having a cup of coffee and asking myself ‘What would I do if I lose my job?’

The job I’m thinking of is one that I love and feel so lucky to have but I am always thinking, probably irrationally, that I am neither qualified nor suited for that job even though, when I see all the rational factors that, to anyone else, prove the opposite. 

So, I decided to just go with it. To go down the rabbit hole and entertain myself with my fears (rational and irrational). I moved from the kitchen to my office desk, opened my laptop and started writing. 

And down the rabbit hole I went! I did not know it at the time, but I just started a larger journey, a journey to discover who I really want to be. 

I made the same mistakes that I always do: I decided to update my resume so I started to review all I have done in my professional career. I tried to understand my professional journey and where I will be in the future. After 30 minutes, my anxiety asserted itself to say “Hello, I am here”. Luckily, I suffer from occasional moments of ADHD so I was quickly thinking about other things like, “Why I am not writing a book?”, “Where can we travel next?”, “What should I do for dinner?”, and “Why don’t I get involved with community theatre?” and 10 min later, I closed my laptop and started making dinner for my husband and I.

While I was cooking, I was also taking pictures of my meal for my 443 Instagram followers – as if I was Martha Stewart. Just then, a question occurred to me “Would I be able to make a living with my cooking skills?”  Maybe cooking isn’t my passion, it is more like a distraction that helps me clear my mind, and I love it! Then, suddenly, I started having one of those panic attacks, based on my irrational thoughts: “How would I pay the mortgage? The bills?? and “Would I find another job like the one I have now?”

The Ramon I know very well was showing up. My Drama Queen-self was making drama out and loud! Since I grew up as a Catholic, it is very easy for me to automatically think that something bad is going to happen because something good is happening to me at that moment.

Over the last two years, I have been working with a therapist on a few things including past events that I experienced as traumas, childhood experiences, unhappiness… basically “a chose your own adventure therapy”! And I have to say. I am so happy to see myself making progress on that adventure. I could finally win the battle against my Drama Queen self, but not the war, yet. 

While my Drama Queen self was making noise, I grabbed a piece of paper (I know should say “my iPad or iPhone” but honestly I use a lot of Post-it notes), and wrote a Post-it note that read: History vs Story, Skills vs Experience, Passions vs Curiosities, and a question: “What job I would like to have if I lose my job?” 

Without noticing it, I had modified the question from “What would I do if I lose my job?” to “What job would I like to have if I lose my job?”  The first one is more focused on how I would react and what I might do if I did not have a job. The answer could be more centered on feelings such as being sad, happy, angry, or depressed. Would I be looking for another job? Would I be able to pay our bills? 

On the other hand, the second question is more constructive and positive. That question  is a way of imagining what I would like to do. 

Let’s not forget, I also wrote a few other notes too:

• History vs Story: Basically, everyone builds their story based on their professional history. Why not write the story I want to be part of. 
• Skills vs Experience: Our professional experience does not always use nor allow us to demonstrate our skills. 
• Passions vs Curiosities: Some people have a passion and they know what they want to do. Other people have curiosities without knowing what they want to do, rather they would like to try things to satisfy their curiosities. 

If I recall correctly, I went to bed that night thinking it was a rather stupid idea that I had. To write what would I do if I lose my job? For sure, I did not need the additional dose of drama… or did I? 

A few days later, between zoom calls, emails, and walking the dogs, I started thinking about who I am. And if the person that I am today is the person that I dreamt of being when I was a child. I can literally write a whole book only about that topic. 

Long story short, the answer to those questions was more confusing than I expected. What did I want to become when I was a child? A teacher, an actor, a writer, a psychologist, a lawyer, and a politician… However, it was Social Work that I studied and I jumped from my studies into work in the retail management world and never finished my Social Work studies! (I did have work experiences in Social Work that may have been very influential in my decisions at the time.)

Some twenty years later, I am still discovering what happened to me to bring me to now, but that is for Season 2.

Before attending another show of my Drama Queen Self, I quickly wrote down, “but I am studying social psychology right now, learning how to become a program manager (or kind of) and why not I am trying to write a memoir or book or something…”. I needed to balance the negative approach of who I am with what I will be… And what I huge mistake, or at least what a mistake. 

Because I did not like what I was seeing about myself, I quickly started to add more carrots instead of using the stick! So far, that unconscious trick has worked well for approximately thirty-seven years.

During my childhood, I did not want to see why I was different from other kids. Nor did I want to understand why I did not want to rescue a princess and instead wanted to be rescued by a prince. 

I focused on my studies and my books! Reading, studying, and getting the best scores all the time. Then, years later, it was the opposite – I wanted to meet too many princes that I barely had time to finish my social work studies which was a degree that I’m not sure why I ended up hating so much. A social psychologist would say that it has to do with delayed gratification. 

As a social psychology student I would say, fuck the delayed gratification, I delayed the gratification of becoming who I am for so many years thinking that one day I would suddenly have everything and then, I would be happy to show who I am! But it never happened that way! 

I found myself working hard to become someone because in fact, I could not be the person I was. 

[Break, I stopped writing this post for a few months]

Now, I found myself talking about the question “What would I do if I lose my job?” but I see some of my peers lost theirs and I am still at the company experiencing survivor’s guilt. 

This is why I thought this is the time to create my blog and start writing because we all tell stories that history does not show, we all have skills that do not make our experience, and you too can live without a passion!

RS