29 years old, jobless, with my days spent holed up in a café as I job-hunt.
The gold Starbucks card in my pocket seems to be my only claim to fame and fortune while I devour both the freshly-toasted bagel and all the information on the jobsites I come across. Not quite how I expected to start the last year of my twenties but instead of worrying, wondering or wishing it was different, I am going to LEAN IN.
I am going to LEAN IN to the next stage of my life, to the exciting new steps, the scary process, the insecurity, the decisions and the great unknown. After all, what’s the worst that could happen – other than I rack up a huge bill at Starbucks?
I know that’s not quite what Sheryl Sandberg meant when she penned her bestseller but it is my new mantra. I can expect a number of rejection letters, a few days where I am flying high like a kite in the sky on a windy day ( to be fair, I will be pumped up on caffeine and optimism) and a few days where I am completely deflated, wallowing in self-pity and pessimism, bemoaning my misfortune and second-guessing if I have any skills or knowledge to offer (I will probably be crashing from all the sugar in my system after too many cups of coffee).
It will be a source of both comfort and despair that there will be many other jobseekers also committed to the job-hunt.
As I build my spreadsheet, subscribe to LinkedIn Premium and Devex, edit my résumé for the millionth time, attend conferences to network and arrange coffee dates (as if I will need any more coffee), I will will myself to keep going by internally chanting Lean in, Lean in, Lean in.
Soon enough, I will be leaning into a job and then I can start the kind of Leaning In that Sandberg wrote about. Until then, the unending chant in my head will be
LEAN IN.