Standing at the Edge of Abundance

After tirelessly knocking

This year felt like the universe picked me up, shook me, and placed me back down facing the opposite direction with a forceful push. Shaken.

I had a vision for what my future would look like, but 2025 didn’t seem to get the memo. It had other plans.

I graduated into an unprecedented job market with unique challenges for Black women. It felt like I was wrestling my degree out of my university’s cold hands just in time as campuses turned into tense political battlefields with Trump’s inauguration. There I was finishing my dissertation on marginalized communities in a keffiyeh looking for jobs in higher education.

Little did I know.

It’s been a humbling year.

When my plans started to crumble, I was left knocking frantically on multiple doors. Any door.

Starting my own business. Freelancing.

Building my own platforms.

Networking. Upskilling. Volunteering.

Applying.

I had no idea where I would land, and I spent much of the year convinced I might never. It was a season of a lot of rejection.

Rejection is evidence of trying, but it’s also a rigorous exercise in ego death. I spent much of the year feeling like I wasn’t good enough. Navigating commentary that suggested I wasn’t doing enough, doing the right things, or that I was actively doing all the wrong things. I was struggling.

But I kept on knocking. I changed my resume, adapted my interview strategies, and consulted mentors.

I started my job search not planning to leave California.

I ended up leaving the country.

I broadened my search in terms of field. Pay. Level.

And when I felt like all hope was lost, I resigned to entrepreneurship. That’s no disrespect to entrepreneurship. It’s now become a cornerstone of my professional life that I will never give up, but I never imagined it for myself. I had a lot of misconceptions about it. Mostly, I didn’t have the confidence.

What did I have to offer and who would really pay?

I thought confidence was a prerequisite. I’ve since come to see it as an entrepreneurial skill you can develop in the process.

Entrepreneurship didn’t stop the knocking, however. If anything, it amplified it. Entrepreneurship doesn’t mean you stop applying to jobs. Many entrepreneurs have full-time jobs. A lot of contracts are in traditional application portals and require a conventional hiring process.

I continued applying to jobs, fellowships, programs, anything that seemed slightly fitting and beneficial. Rejection had taught me that there was no reason to be picky at the application stage.

I was also knocking on doors that didn’t even present themselves as doors. Sending out resumes wherever I could find an email, cold calling, asking. Twice.

It was depressing.

The rude awakening that making a living, no matter which way you cut it, is hard.

It shouldn’t be this hard.

The end of the year brought glimmers of hope. An interview. A second round. A few fellowships that said they’d get back to me. Some subscribers here and there on my platforms. Modest but fulfilling. A couple of contracts secured. Invoices sent.

Entrepreneurship, the ability to secure resources by my own hustle, gave me more confidence than I knew possible. Sometimes the path you fear you’re not good enough for is exactly what shows you your worth.

As I close out the year, I’m hearing a few doors start to unlock and click open.

Just barely ajar.

Still, after many doors slamming the sounds are reassuring.

I had to shake you up to get you where you were trying to go because you were headed nowhere stubbornly fast.

Shaken, inside and out. Completely turned around, but ending the year confident if nothing else.

That the knocking has paid off.

That I’m now standing at the edge of abundance.