Today's Selfish Advice

Send yourself a calendar invite for finding the meaning of life

Welcome to Selfish Advice, team.

Every so often, I go through your anonymous submissions and sit down to write this Q&A column… in which you ponder life’s mysteries out loud (well, via Google Form) and I offer my thoughtful hot takes in return.

Let’s dive into today’s question.

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Hi Alexa,

How can I avoid burn out and depression while looking for a job? Also I don’t even know what I want. Any advice on finding that?

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Dear friend,

Since coming off my little winter sabbatical back in March, I’ve been in this curious situation of having to, for the first time in many years, take all the sage advice I wrote down in #ENTRYLEVELBOSS and apply it to my own career.

And I’ll tell you something: she (me at age 26) appears to have known much more about these things than I feel like I know now. So, my first port of call would be to read her (my?) book again. She genuinely seems quite helpful.

But I’ll also offer up my current perspective as someone who is–at a snail’s pace–currently plodding around in circles as she–at the speed of molasses–sticks the world’s slowest-motion landing into the next chapter of her own professional life.

There are a couple different angles to your question, friend.

There’s the Life Purpose angle, the Non-Work Logistics/Priorities angle, and the Preventing Transition Insanity angle. I vote we go through these in reverse.

First, on the topic of preventing transition insanity: I strongly encourage you to set an entirely arbitrary-but-firm deadline¹ for when your next chapter is officially starting. For when the writers are coming off strike. For when the season premiere is scheduled.

Why must we do this? It’s not just to “stay on track,” whatever that means. Rather, it’s because you can and will waste away your entire life trying to figure out what to do with your life.

I really, really, really speak from experience here.