Reflection Addiction

It’s the year 2025, and the need for a reflection addiction rehabilitation center is more dire than ever—for recovering dope fiends, at least.

You are unemployed. You wake up to a message on LinkedIn, and there’s also that long voice note your mom sent you. Your survival instinct urges you to prioritize the potential job lead over writing back to the fam. “Sorry, Mom, I gotta put food in my cabinet,” you mutter to yourself.

The LinkedIn app has now fully loaded, but you must pay the heavy toll of skimming through a long list of reflecting connections.

Everyone is reflecting out loud on LinkedIn: Sam has academic reflections after earning a degree she’s probably not going to use, Gemma is looking back at her twenty years with IBM (a journey that has finally come to a close), and Gerard... well, made the interesting choice of posting about his conniving wife’s marital backstabbing; he was always one to push the boundaries of what LinkedIn is supposed to be for, but you did not expect him to take it that far.

You make it to your LinkedIn messenger reflectionally scathed, only to realize that what you thought was the first recruiter inMail in months was a cold marketing attempt.

“This is what I get for putting my Mom second, I guess.” You tell yourself as you wallow in guilt and disappointment.

You go back to WhatsApp and hit play, and that’s when your mom angrily asks, “Why haven’t you found a job yet?” as if you were to blame for the economic downturn.

You are now fuming in silent fury, so you take to LinkedIn and relapse into writing a series of reflections.