Ghosted, Overlooked, and Still Standing: A Zenicist Approach to Job Search Frustration

The Cycle of Hope and Disappointment

Job searching is exhausting. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally.

For over four years, I searched for new opportunities. At first, it was just to see what was out there. But eventually, when I was let go from my job, the search became urgent—I needed to find something. And fast.

I was qualified, experienced, and capable. I wasn’t shooting for positions beyond my reach. I was applying for jobs I could do in my sleep. And yet…

✔️ Thousands of applications sent.

✔️ Hundreds of rejection emails, most of them generic auto-responses.

✔️ Only 4 or 5 interviews. Every single one went great. The hiring managers were impressed. They even seemed excited.

✔️ Zero offers. No explanations. Just silence.

At first, I tried to stay positive. “Something will come through.” Then, I started questioning things. “How is this possible?” Eventually, the lack of responses, constant rejection, and uncertainty broke me. For months, I lived in a state of constant stress and anxiety. At times, I started questioning my value—if I was so qualified, why was no one hiring me? Was I even worth hiring?

And then, things got worse.

The Breaking Point: Taking a Job Just to Survive

A few months after being let go, I reached a point of desperation. I took an assignment through a staffing agency—even though I knew it wasn’t a good fit—just to have a steady paycheck. It wasn’t aligned with my skills or long-term goals. The work environment was chaotic and stressful, but I kept telling myself, “At least it’s something.”

But instead of financial security, it brought crippling anxiety. I would wake up every day dreading going in. My body was constantly tense. The stress of forcing myself into this situation—just to survive—started triggering anxiety attacks. Eventually, my body and mind couldn’t take it anymore. I had to abruptly leave the assignment for my mental and physical health.

And just like that, I was once again without income, living off an early-withdrawn 401K, and incurring massive credit card debt just to stay afloat. I was at rock bottom. I felt like I had tried everything, and nothing was working.

But the next job would take me even lower.

A Job That Broke Me Physically and Mentally

After more months of searching, I finally found steady work. But it wasn’t what I had spent 20 years preparing for. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t in a corporate setting. I wasn’t using my skills, my experience, or my expertise. 

Instead, I was in a role that was physically demanding manual labor—something I had never done before. The job was brutal. It pushed my body to its limits. I developed nerve issues, tendinitis, and constant lower back pain. Every day felt like my body was breaking down. And with every ache, every moment of exhaustion, a different kind of pain started creeping in: the mental weight of feeling like I had failed.

I started asking myself:

💡 “With 20 years of professional experience, is this all I’m worth?”

💡 “How did I end up here?”

💡 “Was everything I worked for meaningless?”

For weeks, I sank into a deep depression. I felt numb to the world, my friends, my family, and even myself. I didn’t know who I was anymore. But after a few weeks, something changed. A spark.

That spark gave me just enough strength to endure. And because I endured, I eventually found myself in a better work environment. One where I could finally breathe. And when I found that inner peace, something even greater happened: I finally saw everything clearly.

 The Zenicist Perspective: Clarity, Peace, and Purpose

After months of struggling, something changed. Not externally—the job market was just as broken, and opportunities weren’t suddenly appearing. But internally, everything shifted.

For the first time in over a year, I was in a place where I could breathe. I wasn’t constantly checking emails for responses that would never come. I wasn’t replaying interviews in my head, wondering if I had said the “wrong thing.” I wasn’t questioning my worth based on a process I had no control over.

For the first time, I had inner peace. And that peace allowed me to do something I hadn’t been able to do before—see things clearly.

🔹 Clarity: Seeing the Job Market for What It Is

Having that inner peace gave me the time and mental space to truly reflect on how things had been unfolding in my life—especially over the past turbulent year. I looked back at the thousands of applications, the endless rejections, the moments where I thought I had secured a job—only to be ghosted. And I saw the patterns.

✔️ I saw the illusion. The idea that hard work and qualifications automatically lead to opportunity. That if I just kept applying, something would eventually “click.”

✔️ I saw the reality. Hiring isn’t always about skill—it’s about politics, biases, and invisible factors beyond an applicant’s control.

✔️ And I finally detached from the illusion.

For months, I had been emotionally invested in every rejection, every lost opportunity, every door that refused to open. But once I recognized the broken system for what it was, I stopped internalizing it. I stopped letting it define me.

💡 (For more on this, see my post on Detachment).

🔹 Peace: Letting Go of the Frustration

For so long, I had held on to frustration, anger, and disappointment. Every rejection felt like a personal attack, every ghosted interview felt like an insult. But what I didn’t realize was that holding on was keeping me stuck.

✔️ I had been trying to control something uncontrollable. No amount of effort would force a company to recognize my worth if they weren’t looking for it.

✔️ I had been giving my energy to the wrong things. Instead of focusing on myself, I had been focusing on their decisions.

✔️ I had been measuring my value by a flawed system. And that was the biggest illusion of all.

So I let go. Not because I didn’t care—but because I refused to let something outside of me control how I felt about myself. And when I stopped fighting it, I felt lighter. My energy shifted. And suddenly, I had the freedom to redirect my focus toward something else.

🔹 Purpose: Choosing My Own Path

When I stopped chasing external validation, I was finally able to ask myself:

💡 What do I actually want?

💡 What if I stopped waiting?

💡 What if, instead of hoping someone would choose me, I chose myself?

I realized that for over a year, I had been waiting for permission. Waiting for someone to say, “Yes, you’re good enough. We want you.” But why did I need their approval? Instead of searching for a role to fit into, I started creating something that aligned with me. Instead of waiting to be valued, I started building something valuable.

That’s when Zenicism was born, along with several other ventures and creative opportunities that I built for myself, using my talent the way it was meant to be.

If you’re stuck in the cycle of job search frustration, know that you are not alone. You are more than an ignored application. You are more than a rejection email.

✨ For some, rejection leads to the right job. For others, it lights the fire of entrepreneurship. That’s exactly what happened to me.

In a later post, I’ll share how job search frustrations pushed me to build something for myself—and how it could do the same for you.