Chapter 1: The Rhetorical Fallacy

In this post, likely to be my most vulnerable ever, I’m going to share something I don’t like talking about. I do this in the hopes it helps others. It’s also the beginning of me crossing the bridge I’m on right now, so come with me as I take the first step.

“Post hoc, ergo propter hoc” – “after this, therefore because of this”. Post hoc is a literary rhetorical fallacy where one falsely assumes that because Event A preceded Event B, Event A must have caused Event B. Sometimes it’s easy to make that logic work; I stubbed my toe and then my toe hurt, therefore the pain must be from me stubbing my toe. Sure. Sometimes the logic is a little watery; the door closed and then I sneezed, therefore the door triggers my allergies. Yeah, not so much. I’m going to venture to say that many of us often apply this faulty logic in our daily lives. Maybe you thought “I had a bad day because work was stressful”. That’s understandable, as we spend a large part of our lives working so it stands to reason our work has an impact on the rest of our lives. However, your day is more than just what you did at work. Maybe you tried a new restaurant for lunch and loved it or a friend just announced some great news. We have the ability to be more than our jobs. I am, of course, being hypocritical because for a long time I have allowed my professional successes and failures to dictate my overall happiness. I’m going to share with you a personal piece of information that I have not shared publicly, a fallacy of my own:

I was let go from my job, therefore I am a failure.

There it is, that little detail that has been torturing me since December. I spent weeks feeling awful about myself, going over every minute detail of the work I did there, looking for all the errors I made that led to this. I remember leaving the office worried about what would happen next for them. Would they be able to make sense of my work, would things get dropped, would I get blamed for whatever wasn’t done? I had thrown my heart and soul into that job and was absolutely crushed. It wasn’t until much later (pretty recently, actually) that I came to the realization that my most egregious infraction wasn’t anything I did or didn’t do for the company. It was myself. I had failed myself.

Putting forth the idea that I was a failure because of any of my supposed shortcomings at work is irrational and unfair to me. Here’s the reality: Sometimes it just doesn’t work out. It’s like breaking up a long-term relationship. You may have loved someone for many years, but sometimes you hit a point where it no longer works and the best thing to do is go your separate ways. It doesn’t mean you are a bad person, nor are they, but that you were no longer compatible. The same could be said for me in this job, I was no longer a good fit for the job and it was time for me to move on. Truthfully, I was afraid to take the next step, and give up my salary and health insurance, so I stayed in that job longer than I should have.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: they did me a favor. I was never going to leave on my own, I needed that push. In that moment, it was terrifying and quite painful, but I know now that I will be just fine, and so will they. Believe it or not, I am grateful for what they did. I am a lot stronger and smarter than I was six months ago. Another unintentional benefit was having the chance to process my experiences on my own time. Had I not been let go in December, I inevitably would have been furloughed or let go a few months later like most of the Broadway community due to the Pandemic. I at least had time to settle into unemployment before encountering the most severe public health crises of our time.

I don’t know what the future holds, I only know where I’ve been and what there is to learn from it all. I think it was important to start with this post because being let go was the push for me to start across the bridge. Now I’m on a journey of self-discovery, self-love, and of new opportunities. I know something great is in store for me, it’s just a matter of time.

If you’ve been let go recently, whether because of the pandemic or other reasons, I feel your pain. Yasher koach, may you have strength. You are more than your job.

David and Joe, if you read this, thank you. I didn’t know it at the time, but I needed this.

If you’ve ever been let go and have a story to share, feel free to leave a comment below or message me on the Contact page. I’m also starting a Meetup group called Unemployment Sucks for anyone who wants to discuss being unemployed or needs some support.

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