1. You start off feeling pretty optimistic.
2. After all, you have so much ambition!
3. You imagine how great it'll be to finally have more money.
4. But you don't mind having a little time off to stay at home and relax a bit, for the time being.
5. So you log onto a career website and pump up your LinkedIn profile.
6. Applying to eight jobs a day starts to wear you down, so you order some take-out. No big deal.
7. And you try not to procrastinate too much, even though you're mildly stressed out.
8. Soon after, you get your first interview and get a little antsy.
9. You end up spending tons of money on interview clothes that are too stuffy to wear for any other occasion.
10. You try to approach the interview with confidence.
11. But you get too nervous and immediately regret saying something.
12. To make matters worse, you go weeks without hearing anything back.
13. You now start every morning like this:
14. You begin applying for jobs in cafés just so you can leave your home.
15. And when you are home, you actively try to find new things to do around the house, just to avoid looking at your résumé again.
16. Forget six figures -- you daydream about having ANY kind of salary.
17. But, so far, your inbox is empty.
18. You start to question everything about yourself.
19. You reassess the academic choices you made in college.
20. And you even toy with the notion of picking a different career in general.
21. Meanwhile, your complicated relationship with food deepens.
22. And your bed/couch become the only ones you can really count on.
23. You feel like everyone is secretly losing respect for you for being unemployed.
24. And every conversation somehow manages to turn into a rant about the economy and how you don't have a job because of it.
25. The hardest part, though, is hanging out with your excitedly-employed friends.
26. You want to be supportive, but your own feelings of hopelessness make it so difficult.
27. But then you realize how many of your pals are in the exact same boat as you.
28. And you understand how things could always be worse -- at least you have someone to commiserate with.
29. So you stick together and help each other through these tough times.
30. And you focus on the far future, when you'll be a CEO or famous and can laugh about all of this.
31. But for now, you just have to carry on.
