The true meaning of abundance

If it happens and you hate it, turn it into art.

The word abundance is grossly over-used. It gives me a bit of a cringe-y feeling to use it here, similar to other self-help words that feel too glossy to describe my current perception of this messy planet: words like nourishing, mindfulness practice, and holistic healing. Barf. However, these words are stand-ins for concepts that I not only get behind, but are essential to my everyday survival.

They are obnoxious as concepts because in practice they are hard. One well-calligraphed word doesn’t quite communicate the struggle that is real in trying to stay mindful when you are on the phone off and on for months with your health insurance asking for a correct bill, or trying to convince a government bureaucrat to give you benefits even though it doesn’t perfectly follow her rules because the Kafka-esque system she represents has backed you into a corner. I dare anyone to stay mindful when talking to that woman. It will take every ounce of your Eckhart Tolle-reading-ass to not scream into the earpiece that she is a heartless fascist.

These concepts mean nothing if you can’t engage with them when the chips are down. And for so many right now, myself included, the chips are down. So how do we stay vigilant when the more immediately pleasurable thing would be to act out of our worst impulses? How do we keep our sense of abundance (gross) while experiencing limitations of one kind or another?

I know I’m not supposed to talk about money because it makes people uncomfortable, but here we go. I have been struggling to find a full-time job out there in the world after having worked freelance for basically 7+ years now. Like many who resigned from their jobs during the Great Resignation, who have been caretaking for family, or who are a little older and have enjoyed the world of freelancing for a little too long to look good on our resumes, it can be super tough to get back out there and find a 9-5 that pays a living wage. I remember from my time working as a recruiter that I would get scores of talented, smart people who had zero chance of getting a job using my services because employers would not even consider looking at their jumpy, freelance-y or gap-filled resume.

Corporate America is like a picky eater. Most employers in the LinkedIn biosphere want to hire employees like they are going to order off the kids’ menu at Applebee’s. No matter where in the world they are, they want to know they will get the same chicken tenders and fries every time, with a side of Coca Cola. They want no surprises and no gaps in resumes with recognizable employer names, please. They want loyal employees often without doing anything to deserve it, and many times despite actively doing things that turn their employees against them.

This feeling of injustice and disbelief that I am unhireable is compounded for me by the fact that I am in my mid-40s which feels too young to age out of the corporate world, and too experienced to not be qualified when I could probably run the company of some of the places I apply to. This is also my first time applying for 9-5 jobs as a queer person, and I worry that it makes me an even less likely a fit for the Applebee’s menu. (Sorry to hate on Applebee’s this hard! I have no personal vendetta against them.)

So what does abundance look like when the chips are down? During my walk this morning I started thinking about the Prince story I wrote about in another essay earlier in the year where he was booed off stage while opening for the Rolling Stones. Instead of seeing that embarrassment as a sign he was not meant to be a musician, or that he needed to fix his act, he went bigger by deciding to never open for another band again. Legendary.

If you know that you have talent and skill, you have to own that before other people will reflect it back to you. I wonder if part of my struggle is only sharing an Applebee’s-sized portion of who I am to prospective employers - which to be fair is huge because we love big portions in America. But also thinking about my end goal, I have been forced to ask am I going in the right direction? Am I writing the right emails? Am I trying to get in front of the right people? Or am I applying to weird, low-paying jobs out of desperation?

And to be fair, there is something to be said for taking random jobs that maybe don’t exactly fit your skillset, which most people do at some time in their lives. They might pay badly and be terrible while you’re doing them, but then these jobs become part of your lore.

David Sedaris’ Holiday On Ice essay collection includes an iconic short story about his experience working as an Elf for Macy’s one year in Manhattan’s Santaland called Santaland Diaries. If he had not landed that weird job, the literary world would be a worse place.

Santaland Diaries is maybe a true example of turning shit into abundance. If it happens and you hated it, turn it into art. At least by turning it into art of some kind you can share it with the world, entertain yourself, put a spin on it, or get some small revenge by exposing your personal injustice to the world.