No, that’s not a very optimistic title. You are absolutely right.

Just trying to be honest here.

As one slogs through unemployment, popping his or her head up time and again only to have it smacked back down, an unwilling participant in a universe-wide game of whack-a-mole, waiting on an opportunity to make an employer look like a genius for giving a chance when no one else would, oftentimes throughout this process some relative or friend, a person that only wants to help, will urge the importance of staying positive throughout the ordeal.

“It’ll get better,” they’ll say. “You just have to stay positive.”

A statement to which I always wanted to ask: why, exactly, do I have to stay positive?

Because you have a job? Because things are okay for you?

Most of the people offering such advice either have a job or don’t worry too much about money. You don’t often hear people in the unemployment line or those paying with food stamps talking about how optimistic they are. Commiseration is one thing, but urging blind ignorance of the situation doesn’t do anyone any good.

Oh, it might feel fine for a while, holding out hope and focusing on how great it’s going to feel when the good times start to roll, but a little while later that when will change to if, and then the avalanche is loosed. Self-loathing, fear, and anxiety tumble down the mountainside, gaining strength from that brief sojourn into optimistic, supposedly “good” feeling.

One unemployed night back in February, I felt I was turning a corner of sorts. I hadn’t landed anything yet, but I was getting interviews, going on them, being told I’d hear back from people. I was getting face time, pleading my case to something other than an Inbox, one after the other and each better than the last. As good a time as any to be optimistic, right? Then the evening news dropped the following statistic: the unemployment rate in Illinois (the state to which I recently moved, leaving behind a job - a crummy one, but one that paid - at which I was locked into for the better part of three years) in early 2010 was the highest it had been since 1983.

That’s the year I was born. Shortly thereafter, in the wake of silence on the line from everyone I’d interviewed with in the weeks that followed, it was nearly impossible to keep my head up. To be honest, I didn’t see much point. I still don’t. My fear, my anxiety, while not doing me a hell of a lot of good, were perfectly reasonable responses to such news.

***

Eight professional interviews, to be exact, though three were with temping agencies that ultimately proved useless. I would steel myself before each interview, work up my confidence, prepare to talk about myself, market myself, do things that normally make me intensely uncomfortable and do them with a smile on my face. Not too big a smile, of course, because I didn’t want to weird these people out. Rather a normal-sized, perfectly sane smile that would convey self-confidence and assurance while not making me seem fake, desperate, or delusional.

I worked on massaging my resume’s information, the replies I would give to anticipated questions concerning exactly how running a website by myself for no money prepares me in any way to be paid a salary to run one for a relatively large corporation. How a Writing-Intensive English degree lends itself to a corporate copywriting gig. Why this firm or that agency should choose me instead of the rest of the large pool of more-experienced candidates being considered for the position.

I would have all of this information in my head as I got set to meet a couple of judgmental strangers with the unenviable job of figuring out in the span of twenty minutes whether or not a candidate is the right person for the job. Nerve-wracking on several levels, but not unmanageable. Personal industry eventually takes over.

I got this. I can do this. Confidence. No problem.

And the interviews usually went well. The interviewer(s) laughed at my jokes. I sounded intelligent. I looked good in my suit, remembering to stand up straight and keep everything nice and tight. The running of the website prepared me for the position they were offering because I do everything for the site, from selecting pictures to editing pieces to writing headlines to developing a consistent style across everything I’ve published, all of this while writing the vast majority content, and all of it on my own, without any prodding, in the name of Something Greater, utilizing my free time to hone my skills as a writer and editor independently, because it’s what I do and all I ever want to do. If I am capable of this sort of devotion for no pay and on my own, imagine what I could do for [your company here] once immersed in the particular corporate culture and am acquainted with particular expectations. Factor in the loyalty and gratitude I would forever feel for being given such an opportunity, and, really, I was the ideal candidate. For each position. Every one of them. No question.

We’d shake hands at the end of the interview, and I’d get in my car thinking, Wow, that went really well! I’d allow myself to get excited and to bathe in the optimistic feeling that flooded my body. My head held high. The sun shining on all that I could see. Positivity, man, it’s something else, and boy does it feel good!

Eight interviews. Well, let’s discount the temps agencies. Five interviews. One person never called me back. Ever. After I drove out to Aurora and performed a take-home writing test. Another jerked me around for four months before finally calling to put the bullet in the brain. At least he was nice about it. One of the interviews went so well that they set up a follow-up interview, after which I had to send the H.R. rep multiple emails just to get a dashed-off, three sentence, “Hey John, sorry it took me so long to get back to you. We decided to go with someone else. Good look in your future job search.” Who knows what happened with the other one. All I know is I didn’t get the job.

So what does the flip side of optimism feel like? The absence of a sun that shines on everything you can see? The opposite of thinking everything is going to be alright? You build the unknowable future into this thing that simply has to get better, and when it doesn’t, despair takes optimism’s place, and it is bottomless, limitless, and almost without end. That “positive thinking” that some people think is so powerful merely sets you up for an epic disappointment when you thought things went so well and still that didn’t matter.

It goes beyond frustration. Past anger. Through the bargaining instinct but stopping just short of acceptance. Because how can you accept this? No, you cannot accept this. And there’s damn sure no reason to feel good about it.

***

Some would call this refusal to think positively “pessimistic,” but I prefer the term “realistic.” You have to be honest with yourself. Whether the unemployment process takes two weeks or two months or two years to work out in a satisfactory way, it is never a good idea to lie to oneself. And Realism needn’t necessarily chip away at confidence. Eventually something will hit, if you are any way competent and/or talented. That just seems natural. Until it does, though, there’s no harm in being honest in your pain, acknowledging despair and hanging out with it for a while.

Now, you don’t want to become best friends with that anxiety and despair. Much the way optimism is too easy and futile, so is sadness. It is possible to simply take things at face value, to know yourself and your skills, accept this disappointment for what it is, wallow for a minute, and then go from there.

Man, I didn’t get that job and that really fucking sucks. So much so that I think I’ll pick up my guitar and just play this E chord over and over and over again until I feel like moving onto something else. And if I don’t feel like moving on to any other chords, well at least I showed that E who’s boss. Who’s the boss of this guitar. Me! I’m the boss of this guitar! Fuck it all! Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh!

And then, when the meltdown is over, mind clear and dissatisfaction dealt with, you can head back to the drawing board, attempt to figure out what went wrong, what went right, and how to do things better next time, so that one day in the future you can commiserate with a recently-unemployed friend of yours and say, “Don’t worry, man, you just have to stay positive,” all the while knowing what a bullshit faker you are before ultimately saying, “You know what? Don’t listen to me. Figure it out on your own. You’ll be fine.”

Which is the only thing anyone without a job wants to hear. Not that they should look at the bright side. Just that you understand and, eventually, they will be fine. At least they’ve got someone to talk to about things, and that makes everything so much easier to handle, so long as that person isn’t going on about how to process individual experience.

We’re all smart enough to figure that one out on our own. Acknowledging disappointment and handling its crappy gifts is just another part of that process.