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I've been thinking about how to get motivated and stay motivated. This has been especially hard lately since my top priority (I think) is finishing up my psychologist residency thing – but economic and random factors are keeping me stuck in this limbo or catch 24 state. Currently I've gotten to some interviews, at least one of which would have landed me the position if the jobmarket for psychologist residencies wasn't so dire. I asked if there was anything they wanted to see more of or anything I can do to increase my chances of getting the job in question, and they kindly told me they had didn't really miss anything from me. It was just that tough of a recruitement process.
In another interview I got the impression on first impressions that they did not want to hire me. I still made what might've been the best interview of my life in terms of how I performed, but they rejected me over email. When asked why, they gave "life experience" as half of the reasoning – which to me sounds like thinly veiled age discrimination (which here is illegal but hard to prove). This interpretation is based on them not really asking about life experience as I experienced it, in addition to them seeming uninterested immediately. I think a significant part of their rejection was based on identity factors, some combination of age, gender, ethnicity, and possibly general looks. Could also have to do with my autistic character (though I think I hit a good balance between masking and sincerity).
All of this is knowledge is less than useless since I have no power over it. I can't affect any of this. Currently this "insight" is just destructive to my psyche. If I want to gain anything from it, I need to devise some kind of compensatory strategy. Since I'm white and male, should I try to subtly drop some info of my disadvantages/challenges in life? I suspect it's very easy for employers that only meet me for 45 minutes write me of as privileged, having had an easy life, and thus not having a lot of life experience. The challenge would be incorporating this info in a way which doesn't give cons outweighing the pros.
Some of my challenges are less acceptable as an employee than others. It might be that this is a recruitement context in which some generally negative traits are actually positive – if not just to make me seem more likable and relatble. If we believe someone has had an easier life than ourselves, we tend to like them less (I assume). What we like are people who've gotten a rough hand but still struggle bravely, adding to the lives of others, becoming attractive, and giving a sense of that indominable human spirit. We like people who we aspire to be and self-identify with (or want to).
I think some good "struggles" would be:Back to motivation. I find myself wishing I had something to do which tied into video editing and/or animation, but I can't seem to figure out a "project" – something self-contained that I can present to potential employees and to myself so that I can track my skills developing. I think one such project would be if I managed to write an essay or such worth editing video or animating for. However, I just have vague ideas. I don't want to just create slop, I want to create something that means something to someone. I guess this potentially would have been easier if I was living alone. I find it so much harder to be creative (if not productive) while alone. I guess some of it has to do with needing to get lost in the creative proccess, not being held back by the self-consiousness of being socially percieved.
I find it nice to write for this website that isn't really meant to be shown to anyone in particular. I think it hits a good balance of feeling like the words have some weight and meaning, without the self-consciousness (I kinda wish there was some spellcheck though). Also I think this could work since I can do both writing and HTML-design – two different types of crafts that feed into the same project. Hopefully writing will make me more motivated to improve the design and vice versa.
END OF ENTRY #1Here's how you can make bold and italic text.
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