Six months after a talk

The man in the high castle touched my arm and praised the body change that I went through, ‘would you care to grab a bite when you are in Tunis?’, he asked in a weirdly dominant and polite manner. ‘Yeah with pleasure, I’ll call you’. Little did I know that this quick exchange would be a focal point regarding my future career decisions.

I called the man in the high castle a few days later and we agreed on a date and time, we met in the conference room of the 8th floor of his company’s building, where I waited for him for about 20 minutes, he is a busy man after all. ‘Finally, he is here’, I said to myself after I heard his footsteps approaching the room’s entrance. ‘Hi Mohamed, how are you?’ he asked with a charming smile, we sat, and he immediately asked ‘From all your peers’, and he knows few, ‘you seem the only one who is still working in Tunis, I would like to know why!’. Long story short, the man in the high castle popped the bubble I was living in. The bubble where I settled and embraced mediocrity.

This all started when I was studying in Sousse I was very disappointed by the school, the courses, the students, and the quality of the experience in general. I was expecting some fancy-ass place where people are working hard to improve themselves and bring value to society, but I found none of that. I was struggling to make discussions or communicate ideas with people around me. The subjects, discussions, the words used, and what was perceived as achievements in that place did not differ at all from what you expect to hear in a popular café or bar anywhere in Tunisia. It was a place where mediocrity and shallowness are the rules not the exception and that was an important factor in the decline of my mental health during that period.

I needed to move forward. ‘Tatakae, Hsin, Tatakae’.

Days went by, and I found myself doing a master’s in TBS, where I found what is now my close circle of friends. The difference in the quality of the experience compared to what I witnessed in Sousse was remarkably superior from day one. It was a good break from what I went through previously, and basically what it’s like in most other schools and institutions in Tunisia.

After graduation, I applied for countless opportunities yet weirdly I only had one offer from National Pen and I accepted it, there I met some of my closest friends, and learned how to deal with my anxiety and how to be a true team player. Still, I hated my job due to the misery and despair I felt for not fulfilling my true potentialan. And bit by bit I stopped my side hustles, community engagement, personal projects, and other habits. The fear of rejection, being judged, and the fact that I had a truely amazing circle in the company kept me from dealing with how I felt about it. Essentially I trapped myself again in a bubble because it was the easiest way to manage my disappointment and dissatisfaction, just like what happened in Sousse. And this was the realization that struck me somewhere in the middle of the man in the high castle’s monologue. I felt sick for a few days after that encounter and consumed ungodly amounts of alcohol to comfort myself, yet I couldn’t be at peace.

I had to move forward again, I had to liberate myself, and my real potential.

There came the day I decided to revolt against the bubble again, I resigned after a few weeks from that exchange, and finally liberated myself from a tyranny I created out of fear and despair.

After leaving National Pen, I had to start over, question everything, and simply reflect on what I went through. The idea was to sell all the skills and experience I have, and use that to get a new job that might help me find meaning in my life(not that I don’t have any, but it kinda help to have a job you like to wake up to every morning). My job hunting journey was difficult and the path there was very rocky.

One month in I had a local company offering me a job as a BI analyst, while at the same time having another unofficial offer as an R consultant with the WHO Afro. I decided to go with the latter until they emailed me that they changed their minds for some reason and won’t proceed with an official offer even after I integrated their official communication channels. Basically I turned down an official offer for a non official one, waited for the best, but the best never happened at that point. You can imagine the heavy toll of such a severe disappointment on me adding to my already fragile mental state at that time, TLDR; it wasn’t good.

Eventually I had to move on and continue in my objective: landing a job that brings meaning to my life, a job that challenges me technically and that I can harness experience from doing it everyday.

Till that point, I couldn’t really tell how far or close I was to my objective, it was unclear to me how good or bad I was doing. I conducted countless interviews and technical tests but the response is usually the same, either “None”, or an email starting with “we regret to inform you”. The latter response was rarely transmitted to me though. Tunisian recruiters usually(except some rare examples as I said) never informed me of the fate of my application, I cannot fathom the idea that a professional recruiter would behave in such a rude and demeaning manner, it’s simply disgusting.

Every day I woke up, I had to come up with a new idea, I had to think on how to improve some projects, and make new ones. Every day I needed to reflect on the previous days, and figure out what went wrong or right. Every day, as confused and frustrated and maybe even depressed as I was I had to go forward. Moving forward got me sane to the point where I had 2 great offers at the same day, it was an amazing feeling, the biggest dopamine rush I’ve ever had in my life.

Cheers.!