i'm starting to second guess myself and feel regret.

i'm still looking for a new job but university job offerings slow way down once school begins. i haven't found anything new to apply to in weeks. i really need a masters degree or specific experience to do anything more, or at least that is how i feel. it kills me to think that i won't find anything else until i have more schooling because that will be years and years from now.

what i am most bitter toward my boss about is how he has made me second guess myself. when i began working here i was so ambitious, so determined to do well and have a fantastic team. my reputation soared in a few short months. people i didn't even know on campus knew my name. the weirdest thing about it is that i was just doing my job. to me, a job isn't worth doing if you're not giving everything you've got. which is maybe why i'm so miserable, half assing things right now. then the set backs set in--everyone telling me to stop changing things or to go easier on my employees or to leave them alone altogether. i was gradually but very deliberately slowed down and held back by everyone around me. i became very depressed. work was a waking terror. and while things are very different and much calmer now (even if my relationship with my boss is worse), i have none of that fire. i work maybe one or two honest hours a day--all the work i'm given--and then i just hibernate and survive for the other six. every day. i don't feel like taking on any new projects or pushing things to improve or change because i was so beat down for it last time. and my boss let it all happen. looking back, i did everything right. i was right. and maybe i didn't have the management experience to know how to get everyone 100% on board, but that doesn't change the fact that i was right about policies and implementations and expectations and growth. i was dynamite. i was really wonderful at my job. and not only is that gone now, but i am afraid to make any kind of move unless i upset everyone around me, my boss chief among them. he tells me exactly how to do everything, even down to how and where i physically write things on my reports. he tells me exactly what to list, to highlight this and that, and then circle it all AND initial it to show i was really conscious of what i was doing. (which is bs. and stupid. and i hate that shit.)

i'm not saying i'm brilliant or anything because i'm just not, but i was incredibly hard working and genuinely excited about my job. now my focus is to convince someone else to hire me, and i am just full of doubt. what did i do that was really valuable? do i share my ambitions or hide them because they were all essentially failed projects?

the worst is that i can't be happy with what's going on now. i've been thinking a lot about happiness. i hate it when people say, "you can choose how you feel and you can choose your attitude," because i think that can get fake fast and lead you to convince yourself that your feelings aren't valid. but i think you can choose how you live your life and by doing that you are better able to meet the consequences, good or bad. i want to connect to the people around me. i want to have a connection with my employees and help them. but since there's no natural life or innovation in my job or theirs i don't want to seem contrived or push too hard or make things awkward. i want to come to work and not loathe everyone because of things they said or did once that contributed to my irrelevancy here. i really want to be fulfilled and improve my job and myself with it.

but i don't think my boss deserves good work or even a smile or a kind word, because all those things build up this illusion for and reassure him that everything is fine when it's not. and so much horrible shit has happened to me here. it's like if i try to make things okay and make peace and be industrious i will be saying that i've forgotten or didn't care or that everything that's happened to me here was okay, and it wasn't.

i want that peace and i want comfortable work relationships. more than anything, i want to work hard. but i feel like my boss just wants me to show up and be a robot and not say a word.