The Benefits of Post-Graduate Unemployment

My Situation

I graduated in December from one of the best undergraduate colleges  for Business – the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It marked the end of a four and a half year  journey of my undergraduate education. So far as I can remember I was excited, but at the same time nervous. I was nervous about the uncertainty about my future because I was still unemployed.

It was a scary and unsettling prospect and I felt like I have wasted almost five years of my life. I have to admit, this state lingered on for a while, but eventually I was able to break out of it. Why? I realized that being unemployed puts a lot of things in perspective. And perspective is the word of the day today.

Why does Unemployment Create Stress?

Stress can be thought of as something that reduces your well-being or confidence. And that is exactly what I felt after graduating. The societal pressures that come directly or indirectly from family, friends, peers or even media and form certain expectations that you are almost required to meet.  Those expectations almost make you feel inadequate, -, sad, angry and frustrated all at the same time. That further forces you to doubt your own ability and talent or even purpose of many things that you did for last five years. On top of that, in certain cases you might have to go back to live with your parents, which adds additional pressures for you. Further your ability to do things that you enjoy goes down drastically due to a lack of funds and added stress. How in the world, you ask, is that good or even beneficial? Here is the how.

Why is Unemployment Stress Beneficial?

All of the things mentioned above create many restrictions on your life, which in turn creates a lot of time, which you wouldn’t have otherwise. Having that time and that stress can results in many negative reactions form an individual – such as stress, depression, etc. But it doesn’t have to. Stress exists there for a reason, it is an emotion that is telling you something about yourself. All that you need to do is listen to yourself and use stress and this free time wisely.

Why is Unemployment Beneficial?

If you follow my advice above, then you can learn a great deal about yourself. The first thing you need to ask is why you are unemployed to begin with?

• Is because of your grades?
• Is it because of a certain skill that you lack?
• Is it because you maybe really don’t want to be employed?
• Is it because you really want to start your own business?
• Is it because you are not following your true passion?
• Is it because you are not working hard enough? If so, is it because of the reasons above?

To my surprise I answered yes to a lot of the questions above and I started realized how lucky I was for not having a job at this point of time in my life. Because of the stress and the extra time I had I was able to do many things that were way overdue:

• Reevaluate what is important in life
  • Money?
  • Spirituality?
  • Health?
  • Making a lasting impact?
  • Family?
  • Traveling?
  • Etc.
• Re-prioritize the above
• Start learning new skills
  • Start learning a new language
  • Enhance your communication skills
  • Gain more technical skills
• Thinking of an alternative way to become “employed”
  • Think of ways to start your own business
  • L0ok for alternative paths/careers that more align with the purpose of my life
• Work on personal development
  • Time management
  • Productivity
  • Determining your current and future goals
  • Become more creative
  • Etc.

So now you really start to realize that you are unemployed for a good reason. And you have the opportunity to find out why and work on and maybe change your life path completely. You have the great advantage over people who did get jobs but who hate their work, their bosses or they co-workers. You might say, but at least they have a job that pays. Well, in my opinion, they are actually paying a lot more to have that job than the benefit that they are receiving.

The Real Dangers Of Unemployment

I am not denying that there are some real dangers of being unemployed. The biggest one of them being – becoming comfortable with the idea of doing nothing and just getting by. That is the biggest trap. Some of the other dangers would be

• developing a depression, which would halt your life completely
• not doing anything about your situations and blaming everything on other people
• not accepting responsibility for your own life and your own reality

Now you know why being unemployed right after college is a great opportunity to a blessing in disguise, it is only required to recognize it as such. More importantly, realize that you are not the only one dealing with it and if you are really down, get help. People will be more than willing to help and understanding of your situation. Don’t get discouraged and keep moving!