Fortitude
Two steps forward, one step back.
I couldn’t land anything. Not an interview, not a call back, not even a rejection.
Most times my resume just went out into the ether. It was demoralizing. And one of the best lesson’s of my career.
In August of 2010 I moved to Boston. I moved there to be close to my girlfriend, Helene, who was starting medical school at Tufts. I didn’t have a job, but I knew I had to be close to her and it was the best city in the country to find work in medicine. I was hoping a job in the clinic would help me down the path to medical school.
With two college buddies I signed a lease on an old house on the outskirts of Boston, just across town from Helene. My roommates had jobs lined up before graduation. Most of the people I knew did. You put out a few applications, get some interviews, how hard could it be?
I started sending out applications in the middle of the summer, just one or two a week. Surely one would land and I didn’t want to “string another company along” if I’d already gotten a job. So noble of me.
By the end of August though, all I’d heard were the crickets of the New England summer. No responses, no interviews, no nothing. My savings were wearing thin. I increased my cadence and widened the scope. I had been applying for only clinical research jobs, but I expanded it to lab research, something I’d done in college. I picked up the pace to one or two applications a day. I had multiple resumes going around - one for clinical, one for research.
Suddenly September rent was due. I was $400 short. I had to ask my roommate, who was my best friend (and minor rival) to cover me. Humbling to say the least. I started applying for ANY job now. Finance jobs, baby sitting jobs, I applied to be a chain-saw artist’s assistant. I even tried to get in a sleep study where they paid you to live in a lab for 10 days.
I walked around the Watertown Mall with copies of my resume and picked up two part time jobs (now they’d be called a side-hustle) at Spring Shoes and Aeropostale. In the space of a few months I went from getting awards at graduation to folding jeans for minimum wage while teenager girls told me they liked my shirt. More humble pie.
All the while, I kept slamming out applications. 4 a day. 5 a day. Still nothing.
In the midst of this struggle, I talked to my parents often. They were excellent support, sending me grocery and rent money (I was really broke) and lots of prayers. One conversation with my dad sticks out in particular.
“Well Nathan, I’m sorry you have to go through this, and it might not feel good, but this is excellent training in fortitude.”
What’s fortitude? I didn’t really know.
The Virtues
Fortitude, it turns out, is one of the Cardinal Virtues. There are four pivotal, or cardinal virtues for a good life. They are Fortitude, Justice, Prudence and Temperance. They compliment the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity.
Fortitude is as St Augustine says, “love readily bearing all things for the sake of the loved.” It is the strength and courage to persevere toward the good in the face of adversity. It’s a dogged pursuit of what is right, even when it’s difficult.
It was right for me to be near Helene. It was right for me to find a good job.
And damn it was difficult.
In late October I finally landed an interview, with a cardiology research group. I got it through a friend-of-a-friend and wasn’t sure which resume was submitted. So I arrived to with my padfolio in hand, clinical resume in the front, research in the back. I waited to see which version the interviewer had. Clinical. I opened to the front.
I landed the job! My mom cried. I did too a little. I started the week before Thanksgiving.
A few weeks later I put a down payment on an engagement ring with my first paycheck.
Those months were tough. So much uncertainty of how it was going to pan out, so much effort that felt fruitless. But the aim was good and that lesson in fortitude stuck with me.
In the last 15 years I’ve leaned on it many times. Like when we moved with a 2 week old baby. Or when Helene was in residency, I was in an MBA program, and we had our second baby. Or when we moved across the world with five little kids. Or when ….
I’ve leaned on it the past few months too.
This recent pivot for CappaWork is so close to being finished with the launch of WorkPortfolio. And it’s much more difficult than I anticipated. Some days as I code I feel like I take two steps forward and one back.
But I know I can outlast the problem. I will figure it out, I just don’t know when.
I have fortitude.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1: 2-4.
If you’re in the struggle now, wrestling with adversity on the path toward something good, be unrelenting. Keep going. Do. Not. Give. Up.
Build the virtue of Fortitude.
I’m sorry you’re in it, but I celebrate what it means for your character, cause it’ll stick with you for eternity.
-Nate
