The Nothing of Nothingness

I thought I had been reduced to nothing at a recent job interview. (I'm not writing in my usual elliptic style). Anyway, life is strange and strange things happen in life. We all have our hopes and dreams and being the optimistic humans that we are, the tendency for us is to hope that worse gets better, that one day we will find ourselves in the dream that we envisaged for ourselves. So it is with job hunting. There are two things I know about me - brood and mood.

My interview where I was the preferred candidate after three prior interviews turned into a one-way mauling contest at the final hurdle. How that happened baffles me to this day. At the end of it, I felt I was losing a losing game. I'm savvy enough to know when I'm not or have not done  well at interviews and I also know when I've done my best despite all odds. The latter was the case at my final interview. Nevertheless, I gave it my all, confident I was the favourite for the job but just like in every 100 metres race unless you're Usain Bolt, nothing is guaranteed. In this case I was nowhere near Usain-like. But nevertheless, I gave it my utmost best, prepared hard all along and thought this is it. Except that it wasn't to be. From the moment I was met by the once friendly turned uber-cold CEO, to the point of sticking my presentation stick into their laptop, i sensed that something was wrong.

To cut a long story short, everything I said from go was reduced to rubble. It might as well have been a grand inquisition and I was a meal destined for the lions. In the end I left the place utterly deflated and bruised mentally and emotionally. It would have been better if I had performed badly or even averagely but I had given it a very good shot. I realised in the end and after days of soul searching, self recriminations,  mulling, brooding with anxiety and finally regretting, that it was all about nothing. I was nothing in the end and they had done their best to prove that. It was all about the nothingness of nothing. Life can be unpredictable, so lesson learnt!