Finished Uni and Have No Job? Have Nothing to Do? Read This!

So you have just finished High school, got your results and looking to enroll into university or take a gap year. Either or, you have a lot of spare time on your hands till University starts and begins. So what do you do?

Here is my story:

Once I graduated, I thought life after school was going to be easy. A Piece of Cake, a slow moving river. I thought, Hell YEH! Lot of time for myself. Lot of things to do, heaps of free time, life should be a breeze now. I was wrong. From the days I didn't have University, to the long summer breaks, I was sat home doing nothing. My mental health had gone down and my physical health had rapidly declined. Let me explain why.

I tried too hard to be like all my fellow friends. I tried too hard to copy everyone else's lifestyles. I spent too much time looking at others, I forgot to enjoy the time I had for myself. All my friends were employed and had successful summer jobs. Everyone was working, everyone I had known was making good money and had things to do. So I decided, I should try get a job also right? Wrong! The world did not want me to work. I would apply for so many jobs, and get rejected every time. Sometimes, I wouldn't even hear back from the employers. I graduated November 2018. For 10 Months after that, I was unsuccessful in finding a job. I would apply on Seek, Indeed, get referrals, hand in resumes in store, but nothing seemed to work. It would frustrate me. How did all my mates, find jobs so easily and earn that money and enjoy it, whilst I am sitting at home struggling to get interviews? Rejection after rejection, I probably applied for a 100 jobs, all because I saw my friends working and thought I should follow that same social hierarchy. Being at home and doing nothing and being rejected from jobs, really started to wear me down mentally. It started giving me anxiety and borderline depression. I was vulnerable to the situation that surrounded me. My parents would attend work, my brother would go to school, and I was stuck at home (besides days I went university) doing nothing. At the time I didn't even have a car or a license, so I could not go anywhere even I wanted to. I would stay at home and feel sorry for myself and just complain and be frustrated. This lead me to stress-eating and putting on weight. Now the thing is, I have been overweight my whole life anyway, I was never healthy, and never had good eating habits, or control of my diet. But becoming depressed, made it a whole lot worse on my diet. I would stress eat, and become temporarily relieved for the time. I kept eating and watching Netflix all day, because I accepted my fate in being unemployed and stuck at home. So I thought, F*#k it! this is what my life has come to. Just being at home and doing nothing (the depression had me so unmotivated I didn't even feel like studying for University). I felt slightly better when I would binge watch TV shows and eat snacks all day. I put on weight and became depressed, no turning back, is what I thought. I am from a very spiritual family (with strict Christian morals, values and practices), so from the beginning I was taught, Read the Bible everyday, Pray everyday! God will bless you, you will be encouraged....etc. But throughout this period, all of this was thrown out the window. In fact i couldn't care less about religion. I was so frustrated with everything, I even started accusing God for everything that had gone wrong in my life. Literally forgot everything I was taught to practice, because the unemployment had really got to me. Its not even that big of an issue if you think about, I have the rest of my life to become better and have a job, but at the time I thought it was a social customary to have a job as a University student, I thought that was the only way of being socially acceptable. Physically, Mentally, Socially and Spiritually I hit rock bottom.

I had given up on my job hunt. It is game over for me. It is September 2019 and I am still jobless, still fat and still ignorant about my Spiritual practices. Until slowly opportunities had started coming to me. I had a mate from Church who was working in a popular retail shop. I just decided to ask and shoot my chances in asking for a referral despite knowing this hasn't worked in the past. I had not heard from her, for 2 weeks, so I thought, 'Yep History repeating itself again", and I was just about ready to forget about looking for jobs till I was done with University. Out of nowhere, one night I got a message from her, about the shop hiring from Christmas casuals. It was a job advertisement, looking for team members. She told me to apply, even though I was hesitant, knowing I have been rejected in the past. But yet again I shot my chances and applied. Literally, I kid you not, within the next few days, I was called in for the interview. Now I have gone to interview stage before and got rejected even there, so I was hesitant the whole time.

3 days after interview, I was offered the job! YAY!! Congrats to my fat ass WooHooo amazing! I was over the moon to stay the least. I was so happy, not only did I get a job after countless rejections, but it is a job with a very well reputed company, so I was bound to know that I would learn valuable skills and have great experiences. Everyone was telling me, working for this company will change your life, as it will be easier to get jobs in the future and what not. I was ecstatic. To make things even more interesting. The same day I was offered a job at the company, my mum managed to get me another interview at another place.

I asked her, is it really worth attending that one, now that I finally got job? She said, 'Well if you get this one also, you will have two jobs". I thought, Yes, screw it you're right, I'll attend this interview also. To my surprise, I attended, the second interview, and to be honest, it was not even an interview, it was just me signing contracts for 1 hour.

So by the beginning of September I had landed myself two fresh jobs, after being rejected countless number of times. I never thought this was possible. After giving up and accepting my fate, things took a big turn, this was my turning point. I am so grateful now.

The point of this article is to tell you to never give up. Keep trying and persisting. Do not let the world define you identity, work on yourself and persevere and be blessed. Everything comes with time, you just have to wait and be patient. If I had known this from the get-go and truly understood it, all that depression and anxiety would not have been present.

After getting these two jobs, everything else started to fall back into place. I was grateful and thankful for what was given to me, so I knew had to praise God for it. I became more spiritually aware and focused, and now know that everything has a plan and purpose and God has put us here for a reason. I still don't know my purpose, but the opportunities he continues to give me, are all stepping stones to my true purpose. Do not give up people! My fellow uni friends or job seekers, everything will fall into place. Just know it will happen.

With the money earned, I am now paying for a gym membership. Going to the gym, hoping to become better in shape and change my bad unhealthy lifestyle for once.

It is now 1 year later, since graduating, December 2019, and I am in the best place of my life. For me it took a Year, for you it may take more or less, but don't give up! Be true to yourself and your purpose.