What makes you think platitudes are always dishonest, first of all? Your writing sounds like fuckin' AI, so I wouldn't complain if I were you. "Beggars can't be choosers." Also, "You can't always get what you want." I will respond in platitude format.
1) Effort still correlates with outcomes, it's just that there is some random noise in the signal. Maybe moreso in these noisy times.
2) DID any of what she did matter? If she enjoyed it or found it meaningful, then yes. If it was just being "sensible" a.k.a. grinding and bald careerism, then no, even if she weren't laid off.
3) She's young. My first layoff, I took it hard too. By the third or fourth one, I would laugh and look forward to a small vacation of coasting on unemployment.
4) Ordinarily a post-college-age kid with a job is living on her own and you wouldn't have access to her crying moments. And another primary emotion alongside despair would be anxiety about making rent. It's painful to watch your kids suffer, but suffer they will and suffer they must.
5) Continuing from point 2, does she have a meaningful hobby? She needs to start one. If only to provide a break from the unhealthy amount of grinding she sounds like she's doing. Try music, a lot of engineers are good at music. I'm good enough at it that I was once able to support myself on it, and now see my day job as something I can leave, something I tolerate but am too good for. My genius is not defined by it. It's only work.
6) Celebrate Christmas the way all half-assed unprepared people do: Big feast at the Chinese restaurant tonight. Or Thai, I guess is the new Chinese. Pretending everything is okay? Who fucking died? Everything IS okay. A little perspective would go a long way and you're the one who needs to provide it.
1) Effort still correlates with outcomes, it's just that there is some random noise in the signal. Maybe moreso in these noisy times.
2) DID any of what she did matter? If she enjoyed it or found it meaningful, then yes. If it was just being "sensible" a.k.a. grinding and bald careerism, then no, even if she weren't laid off.
3) She's young. My first layoff, I took it hard too. By the third or fourth one, I would laugh and look forward to a small vacation of coasting on unemployment.
4) Ordinarily a post-college-age kid with a job is living on her own and you wouldn't have access to her crying moments. And another primary emotion alongside despair would be anxiety about making rent. It's painful to watch your kids suffer, but suffer they will and suffer they must.
5) Continuing from point 2, does she have a meaningful hobby? She needs to start one. If only to provide a break from the unhealthy amount of grinding she sounds like she's doing. Try music, a lot of engineers are good at music. I'm good enough at it that I was once able to support myself on it, and now see my day job as something I can leave, something I tolerate but am too good for. My genius is not defined by it. It's only work.
6) Celebrate Christmas the way all half-assed unprepared people do: Big feast at the Chinese restaurant tonight. Or Thai, I guess is the new Chinese. Pretending everything is okay? Who fucking died? Everything IS okay. A little perspective would go a long way and you're the one who needs to provide it.