A lot of my lack of self-esteem comes from not being able to hold a full time job while I'm a full time doctoral student. I had a temporary job last semester that was about 30 hours in a week and I got a week behind in my school work. I can't just go to part time either because my boyfriend and I need to graduate at the same time, or we'll end up apart for a year or so. But you know, everyone else has a job and most have a family at the same time they're a doctoral student. One goes to class during the day and works nights. And I can't even handle 30 hours a week when I'm not married and don't have kids?! And this is when they're FULL TIME students, not part time. I work a full time temporary job in the summer, but to me I don't get paid enough within the year to have value as a person. I just know other people put the minimum amount of work possible in their school work and I tend to be the top of the class because I have all day to do work. But no one cares about grades…it won't help me get a job. Having a job will help me get a job. Being unemployed for so long because I've been a student virtually my whole life and I can't balance the two is going to be so detrimental for my future. How do I get a job with zero experience? Most of my competitors have that experience because they either had assistantships or they work an outside job on top of school. How can I ever pretend to have any worth when I literally have very little worth. I may not have made enough this year to pay taxes…which is devastating because I need information from taxes in order to get future royalties for my work. So I'll be making even LESS money. It hurts every time I realize I lose out on royalties because I'm not in ASCAP.

Maybe I should just drop out so I can be less of a loser and actually have a job. Or maybe if I had two full time jobs over the summer so I could make enough to pay taxes and be slightly less of a loser. But even so, I couldn't balance a real job (as in a job that's at least 9 months a year) with school, so it wouldn't matter. I would be a loser that will be unemployable in the future no matter what.

So how can I have self esteem when I don't have a job/own my house/not married etc.?