Diary of a 20-something Nigerian: job interviews, self-acceptance and finding God (maybe)
12:40 pm, Thursday, September 21.
Since I was a kid, I’ve been more melancholy than others.
I’ve always been more in tune with the slower, “sadder” parts of this reality than its sunnier counterparts.
Of course, this means I can be negative and doubting of the world and myself, I can be closed off and remote, and I can also be cynical and combative. I’m learning to see it fully now.
My mum would always tell me “Stop being so negative” because as a child I just never felt like good found me.
I don’t know if that makes sense, but I never asked for much because I automatically felt I would not be given, I never really aspired to be much, because I didn’t feel like I was favoured.
Of course, this also has to do with self-esteem issues I battled with as a child and still battle with, even as an adult, but at the very core of my being, I think I’m just more melancholy than the average person.
Again, I’m learning to see it fully now.
This means that I’m trying to acknowledge my sadnesses and my lows, learning to stop building fortresses that further trap me in despair, and I’m learning to observe my feelings from a higher point.
See them and greet them, but not wallow.
It hasn’t been easy.
When I was younger I felt like I pushed people away with these qualities; no one likes to be around a downer, and kids are usually happy and playful and seeking fun. I wasn’t like that.
In secondary school, I started to mask this a lot, mostly because my friend at the time would point it out a lot.
“Why are you always behaving like this? This is why people don’t like you, you’re too down all the time, you’re too sensitive, you’re too emotional,” he would say.
It made me think about myself, and for better or worse, highlighted my differences even more.
So I started trying to reduce that part of me, trying to be more open to things I felt I should be open to; parties/events, “gist”, love, my physical appearance, etc.
After secondary school, it felt like I could finally let a role drop — but I’d been performing so much that it was odd to not have an act to play.
I didn’t know who I was, and away from the influence of that friend, I was a bit lost.
I’m still in the process of finding myself now, but I’m a lot more me than I was then.
People who have always been who they are are so interesting to me; you’ve known your own opinions and thoughts since you were a child or a teen, and you’ve just grown through that to be who you are today?
Wild.
It feels like I’ve had to open many doors and meet many people to become who I am today.
Maybe that’s why I’m so empathetic. (just empath things)
Anyway, my point is that I’m learning to not see my nature as bad.
I’m not a happy-go-lucky person, and honestly, I don’t want to be — it looks exhausting.
And that’s fine. What matters is how I accept and deal with my nature.
Sometimes, sitting in it is important to integrate what your experience or your body is trying to tell you, but it’s crucial to know when to get up and move that weight around.
It’s part of why I do yoga and take walks.
Being the heavy, melancholic person that I am, it’s very easy to become stagnant and to stay in that stagnancy.
And we all know that feeling stuck can send you into a spiral.
This is why moving is very important to me, why light and space are important to me, why I don’t like having too many things (minimalism), why I don’t usually enjoy music with words, and why I am the way I am, essentially.
I am, inside of me, heavy. My emotions, my thoughts, my desires, so anything that also weighs down my physical existence can’t be allowed near me.
This is random and unexpectedly deep, but I wanted to share.
Pilates time.
Big time-jump.
It’s now 9:30 a.m., Wednesday October 11.
Why such a large gap? I’m not sure as well.
I’ve been busy the past two weeks, and the words just didn’t come. But I feel inspired to write today, so here we are.
I just finished a yoga session, and I’m sitting on my mat typing this.
So, my entry about leaving my job and why I did.
Two significant things have happened because of that entry.
I knew I was taking a bit of a risk posting that, as I said in the entry itself, but I feel like I owed it to both myself and anyone else who may be feeling the same or going through the same. It was a way for me to vent and reclaim my autonomy and share that with people, and I love it.
And from the responses, a lot of people resonated, and that’s why I’m so grateful that I wrote it.
But, it came to my attention that it was not professionally right of me to talk badly about a former employer, even if they were in the wrong.
It’s sad, but it does make sense.
Companies don’t want to hire people who may one day turn around and air their dirty laundry on the internet.
While we want crappy companies to start doing a better job and listening to their employees more, what they want is very singular — they want to make a profit.
Again, it’s sad, but it’s true, and it’s been a bitter pill to swallow, but spitters are quitters, innit?
This is why I decided to make that entry private.
It sucks, and I wish we lived in a different world, but I’m glad that I was able to write and publish it at all — I don’t regret any part of that. I’m happy that people read and resonated with my experiences, and I’m so grateful for the amount of support I got (so grateful).
But we’re all learning and growing, and I’m also grateful to the people who reached out to tell me that leaving it up might not be the best decision career-wise.
So I guess the moral of the story is, don’t be afraid to go back to your decisions and reevaluate them.
Now, on to more positive stuff.
Remember I said that two significant things happened?
Under that entry, a reader left a comment, and in his comment was a link to a job opening.
I thought that was very kind of him, and even though I haven’t actively started job searching again, it felt rude of me to ignore someone’s offer of help.
So I applied to this job, not thinking much of it.
I’ve received enough rejections and ghostings to know that Omo, the job market is one or two shege if you get too attached or hopeful.
A week later I received an email from them, thanking me for my application, giving me an assessment, and a submission deadline. If I did well enough, they would contact me for an interview.
I was starting to get a bit hopeful at that point — it meant they saw me as a potential fit for the role.
The assessment was a writing one (obviously), and I think I did pretty well on it. I might post it here actually, it’s a cute little hyperlocal story.
Anyway, I submitted it and waited to hear back from them.
A day passed, and I thought they were probably just getting a lot of responses, I can chill.
Three days, I was checking my inbox consistently, but nothing yet.
A week passed and I decided to consciously start detaching from expectations (which I do by being negative and cynical. It’s very fun) because there would be other jobs.
Two weeks later I was forgetting about the job, maybe my story had been beaten by someone else, which was a bummer, but still fine.
Then, a few days ago I randomly went through my email at 11:30 pm. Why? I don’t know too.
So for some reason, I decided to check my spam mail.
Sitting unopened was an email from these people, sent nine days prior.
Of course, I started a mini freak out.
How had I not checked spam all these days? What if they had already come to a hiring decision? What if I’d missed a great opportunity?
But almost simultaneously, there was a calmness within me.
Everyone knows I’m not religious, but I can only describe it as a kind of higher knowing.
Let me explain.
In the past few months-ish, I’ve become a lot more spiritual?
Question mark because I’m not exactly sure what’s going on, but it’s a change.
It’s nothing crazy, and not religion, it’s more of a deeper connection to myself and by extension, my higher self and the universe (God, Jehovah, Allah, Spirit, whatever you want to call it).
It started through yoga and meditation.
While yoga can be purely physical, it is also a spiritual practice.
I don’t want to bore you with the details, so simply put, Yoga focuses a lot on bringing together the physical body and the spirit or mind to achieve true wellness and introspection.
It’s working on both of these parts of the self to essentially exist better.
Through this it is easier to know yourself more, both physically and mentally; you know which parts of your body are naturally stronger or weaker, you know where your mind goes when everything is still and quiet, you know what poses bring you the most relief, and you notice how your thoughts move when you’re agitated vs relaxed.
Personally, yoga starts with self-mastery, and during the forging of this connection — between body and mind — is where you might also find a connection to higher power, whatever it is that you believe in.
I do not want to go much further into that because I don’t feel like sharing my personal belief system, but that's the basis for me.
So, before I put in that application, I prayed that if getting this job would advance me, then let me have it. But if it would deplete me, then I don’t want it.
It is this knowing that what will be mine, will be mine, that allowed me not to feel too frazzled about finding a meeting invite in my spam nine days later.
Of course, this doesn’t mean I sit in my room and wait for opportunities to come to me, my point is that I put my best foot forward, and I’m fine with either outcome because I chose to believe the universe is working in my favour.
This is why I’m grateful for my previous job, no matter how crazy it was. I still learned things.
So I replied to the mail with an apology, asking if they were still available to speak, and the next day they got back to me with an affirmative.
I have the interview on Friday.
Wish me luck!
I’ll obviously let you guys know how it goes anyway.
I feel like I rambled a bit, as this is already longer than normal, but all these tangents are important, and you really wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want to be.
Thank you for reading my thoughts and being.
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