When You Lose Your Job, And Have No Idea What’s Next
Losing your job and security is terrifying, but uncertainty is also. It’s time to embrace it, to not only change my path, but to embrace the not knowing. To become comfortable with just walking ahead and facing whatever challenges come my way.
By Amy McDonald
It was a normal Wednesday. I’d picked up my breakfast on the way into the office, and checked my emails as I do every morning and caught up with my team about their evenings.
One hour later, we all found ourselves sitting in a room being told we were losing our jobs.
Even now, writing this, it doesn’t feel real. My job was the certain, solid aspect of my fluctuating life. My social circles, dates and style change on a weekly basis, but that office had been my solid fort for the past three years.
And now, I sit, faced with uncertainty. I don’t know what the future holds anymore – will it be in this city I’ve grown to love, with the people I’ve grown accustomed to and hold dear as friends? Or will I be forced to move to a new city, a new job and grow accustomed to new people?
What happens when I’m no longer connected to all the friends I made in the office? Will we remain friends when the embryo has been cut and we are separated into different lives, cities and careers? Will I even have a career?
I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, nor to the thousand more constantly swarming in my head, keeping me from sleep. I don’t know where the next six months will lead me or what I’ll be doing in a year, who I’ll be with, where I’ll be.
What I do know though, is that it goes on. The shock will pass, the fear and sadness will diminish and I will carry on. Maybe I’ll even start to see this for the liberation it is – the world suddenly becomes my oyster. My future may no longer be a solid vision in my mind, but maybe that’s the beauty of it? Sometimes not knowing is what makes life so exciting, even if it doesn’t feel that way right now.
One foot in front of the other, one day after the next, it goes on.
Losing your job and security is terrifying, but uncertainty is also. It’s time to embrace it, to not only change my path, but to embrace the not knowing. To become comfortable with just walking ahead and facing whatever challenges come my way.
All we can do as people, is continue forward and know that we are strong enough to do whatever it is we want to do and be whoever we want to be, even if we don’t know ourselves yet what or who that is. 
