My last day of work was the 30th of October. That means I've been unemployed for nearly 9 months now. And I will be completely honest with you here...I didn't expect that to happen.

I've only had to look for jobs twice in my life. Once, I was in grad school and basically signed up to interview with anyone that came through the on campus recruitment office and ended up with 4 job offers. The other was when I moved to the UK, and I had a job 6 weeks after I started looking thanks to a recruiter coming to me with the perfect opportunity.

What can I say, I'm an engineer. We work in a large variety of industries, doing a large variety of things, and at least in the UK, there's a shortage of us. So I'll admit, I expected to find a job quickly and easily this time, just like last time.

And I haven't. And that's depressing. It makes me feel like a failure, like I'm not a productive member of society, like I'm mooching off Ian. And it makes me crazy to constantly have to respond to people's well meaning questions about my job search that no, there's nothing. No nibbles, no interviews, no interest whatsoever.

(Actually, that's not entirely true. I've been called about jobs in Oxford and Farmborough. Which are both...very very far away from here. Joy.)

The other thing I've been feeling is guilty. Because as I continue to not find jobs, I can't help but think that part of the reason is because I'm not trying hard enough. I mean, I'm looking and applying, but I'm not looking as often as I could or in as many ways as I could. And again, I'll be honest with you. Part of that is because if I know I'm not trying my hardest, then I don't have to feel so bad about not finding a job. Because then it's not that I'm not worthy of a job, it's just that I haven't tried hard enough to get one.

Now whether that's really an issue here or not, I've come to realise that the guilt I'm feeling over my belief that I'm half-assing this job search is a hell of a lot worse than the feelings of failure would probably be. Because let's face it, to everyone other than me (including prospective employers who are going to wonder why I was unemployed for over 9 months) I am a failure. At least, I'm as much of a failure as being unemployed makes them see me, no matter how I'm conducting my job search.

Of course, revelations are only so useful in real life situations. What you need to do is turn that revelation into a mantra, and turn that mantra into a call to action, and turn that call to action into a driver to get your ass off the couch, or at least to sit on the couch looking for jobs rather than watching "How Clean is Your House?" reruns. So I need a mantra, and here it is...

I'd rather be a failure than a quitter.

Short, simple, to the point. And also true, which any good mantra should be if at all possible. And hopefully will provide the motivation I need to make some extra attempts to find meaningful employment. And if I still don't find anything, well at least I'll be able to live with myself knowing that I've really tried.

Or maybe failure actually will feel just as bad as guilt. I'll keep you informed.