unemployment woes

It's hard not to have a job. Most obviously, you miss the money that you're not making but that you keep spending in order to do things like stay alive and pay rent. Also obviously, you may get bored with all the extra time you have on your hands, even in a place as exciting as London. After applying for your fifth job of the day, you resort to entertaining yourself by knitting another baby hat for a friend, watching reruns of your favorite television series, going to museums, or just walking around town. But nothing you do completely diminishes the anxiety you feel while you wait to hear back from the jobs you've applied for. You're afraid to open your email to another rejection. You feel guilty being out and about and enjoying yourself when you know you should be doing something more productive. Like working. Or applying for more jobs even though you've scoured the internet every day for the past many days and there isn't anything new that you haven't already applied for.

After a while of not having a job, your standards begin to lower. Jobs you never would have considered 3 months ago don't seem so bad. Opportunities in remote areas of the world that you were never before interested in and would require you to move far far away seem much more plausible. You start scheming for alternative ways of making money. Selling your possessions, for example. You wonder if your spouse really needs two kidneys. Or maybe you really can become a millionaire from home by stuffing envelopes.

What it really comes down to is waiting. Finding a job is just a game of waiting and dealing with anxiety. And trying to keep hoping.