the quiet crash out from your first full time job

when reality hits and you don't know what to do

It’s a canon effect. That first crash out when you start working full time. Maybe it takes a few months before it happens, or a year. Maybe it only takes a week. A day. An hour.

Stepping into your first full time jobs feels like an ice plunge. Something that everyone aspires to do, but no one is prepared to endure.

When the blare of your alarm jolts you out of your peaceful slumber. Eyes bleary, the sun still sleeping.

The morning commute when you clock the soulless stares of people on the trains. How every person is glued to a brightly lit rectangular screen, four corners of escapism, before they spend the day caged between the four walls of a cubicle.

Or if you’re “lucky enough” to have an open floor plan, you’re still chained to your desk. And the countless meetings. Don’t even get me started.

When the days blur into weeks which blur into months.

Slowly you start living for the weekend.

On Friday, you’re so exhausted you can do nothing but crawl into bed. Saturdays are for going out and drinking yourself silly. Sundays become chore days, battling those Sunday scaries and prepping (both physically and mentally) for the week ahead. Monday is reporting. Tuesday, the office. Wednesday, hump day…

… and suddenly an entire year has passed by in a blink.

And somewhere, somehow without realising it, you’ve silently rearranged your life into this mass form of maintenance, a quiet repetition that you barely recognise.

Autopilot, to some. Self preservation, to others

No one really warns you about the disillusionment the real world throws at you.

As someone who had followed a set path, who had their whole life dictated by rules and schedules through school, then college, then internships, jumping into the abyss of ‘real life’ felt both exciting and daunting.

The possibilities seemed expansive, wide, endless.

And then that first week arrived.

Work was all I ate, slept, and breathed. I crawled to the end of the week only to realise I was so emotionally and physically exhausted that I had no energy left for all the goals and plans and passions and hobbies I promised myself I’d finally get to tackle once I started working full time.

Once I escaped the demands of school and full time study.

I couldn’t grapple with the fact that this was what all those years had led to. That this might be my life for the next 40 years.

Had I made a huge mistake?

But you’re not supposed to know what you want at 22.

And maybe it’s settling. Maybe it’s getting used to the mundane, the monotony and repetition of the day to day. Another cog in the machine.

But that’s a rather bleak way of looking at life, isn’t it?

Yes, it might feel like a trap right now. Yes, it might feel like you’ll never see the light at the end of the tunnel. But your twenties - and thirties and even beyond - are messy and confusing by default.

So maybe the answer is to embrace it.

Use this opportunity to learn. To hone the fundamentals of building a routine, learning discipline, finding structure.

Pursue your passions and hobbies. Start drawing again. Knitting. Swimming. Hell, there’s a reason why those run clubs are so popular.

Create a morning routine that you wake up excited to do. Fall in love with the quiet. The intention. The consistency.

The deep breaths as you prepare for your day.

This might not be your forever job, but it can be a launchpad for something else. And hey, if it lines your pocket with a little extra cash, enough to try new things, book that holiday you’ve been thinking of, move out, save for whatever comes next, then all the better.

And maybe - this might be my fully developed frontal lobe talking - it really is about the little things. That first sip of coffee. Your regular lunch spot remembering your order. Smiling at someone who held the door open for you. Free office snacks. The hallways chats you usually avoid but occasionally make you laugh with surprise.

Those small slices of life; quiet, fleeting, that make it all feel worth it.