Feb 23, 2025
Sometimes you'll hear people talk about how God has guided them to wherever they're at through little nudges or providential serendipity or little nudges to do or say this or that
I'm having the opposite experience, wandering into bad career moves, silly errors, inadvertent oversharing, etc., unintentionally self-sabotaging in a futile quest that can lead only to ruin despite my best, even desperate efforts to the contrary
#one pair of footprints in the sand but it's me blindly wandering off alone begging for help completely out of earshot#now the Christianese answer to this is to stop trying so hard#and just put it in God's hands#except that God isn't going to fill out these applications#nor has God led anyone to offer me a job apropos of nothing#or friendship or intimacy or love for that matter#all these things I am on my own to chase down#ironically pushing them further away with every effort#forcing me to conclude that God's plan all along was actually just isolated misery#like that cartoon of the guy begging God for a sign of what he should do and God tells him to be an accountant#except that God is telling me to stay in my hometown#bounce from dead end job to dead end job#be lonely#and submit to my family whose presence I cannot tolerate#for years people have theorized that there are some people who are created with the nature of a slave#I was created to be ground into the dirt#'Ivan what prompted all this today?'#accidentally left a reference to another job application in a cover letter#applying for jobs is a full time job#you need to give every application your full undivided attention so that ChatGPT can filter you out#except I already have a full time job#and a family that I can only describe as ASTONISHINGLY needy#of course there is no other kind#so when and where do I find the time and the ENERGY to devote to each and every job the love and care it demands?#will any of this ever return to me?#after I have poured myself out so there is nothing left#will anyone or anything pour back into me?#will I ever reap anything worthwhile?#is it worth it to be alive
