For over a year, I have been trying very hard to clarify and elevate my career. The process has been very effortful and confusing, but I am doing my best to be patient.
The last few months in particular have seen me struggle through a near-constant stream of job, graduate school, and scholarship applications. At this point, I have lost track of how many personal statements, resumes, cover letters and essays I have churned out in the attempt to open new pathways for myself.
Each application calls for reflection; an appraisal of my personal or professional history, linked with an explanation of why I fit their role or program. So I dutifully arrange and edit myself into a palatable profile. I omit some parts of my story, and highlight others, hopefully convincingly enough to persuade the reader that I am the shiny missing piece they’ve been searching for. As someone with varied interests and a somewhat disjointed work history, this takes time and effort. Once I’ve polished up enough, I submit, and promptly rearrange and re-edit to tailor myself for the next application.
I am not a fan of this sort of persuasive autobiographical writing. This morning as I eyed another application, I felt my stomach turn, as if to ask: Which aspect of our story will you scoop out and sanitize today? What parts will you deem irrelevant, unpalatable, too confusing? What have you decided other people will reject you for?
I do not want to turn such a critical eye inward, but to move forward in my career it feels like a necessity. We must craft and present curated versions of ourselves because the job market heavily favors specialization, and the gatekeepers lack patience, especially for non-specialized applicants like me. Left to my own devices, I am an interdisciplinary explorer; a jack of all trades, master of none. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. In fact, I believe it is a strength of mine. But hiring and admissions committees do not seem to share that belief, and so I feel pressured—as most of us do—to prune myself. To specialize.
But even more so, I am unsteadied by the exercise of repeatedly writing my same stories and experiences from slightly different angles. I am losing track of what actually feels true to me about myself. Maybe I’m experiencing a sort of mild depersonalization; a dissolution of self image. We all have stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, and identity is formed when we actually believe those stories. But in producing so many versions of my story to convince others, I have become painfully aware that I do not have any story about myself that is actually, fully true.
Science has shown us that our memories get corrupted with each retelling, and at this number and rate of retellings, I should be skeptical of drawing conclusions about myself and my past experiences. Because what do I know about my past anyways? I am an unreliable narrator.
So as I hold my breath and the powers that be cast their decisions about my future, I feel unmoored, and a bit like a lost puppy. I cannot tell you where I am trying to go, and I cannot honestly tell you where I have been. Lack of certainty is scary for sure, but in another (softer) light, it could also look like freedom.
So for now, my courage looks like allowance. It looks like letting my stories fall away without scrambling to replace them. It looks like saying I don’t know and truly meaning it. It looks like continuing on anyways.
Because what if, in letting go of my past and all my certainty, I am more free? What if I land somewhere wonderful?