Tag Archives: unemployed

The Meaning of the Rat Race



*This was first posted on Dec. 14th, 2008, during the tumultuous downturn of the economy, right after I got laid off from a publishing job. I feel that the questions I asked here are still pertinent now, and wanted to re-post.

If, workers of the world, you were suddenly told you did not have to work another day for the rest of your life, what would you do?

Oh sure, it’s fun to imagine it when you’re chained to a workplace.

But imagine for once that it’s true. What are you going to do with all of that free time?

Read books? Write that novel? Record an album? Meet up with all the friends and family you’ve been abandoning because you’re just too busy?

As my friend grapples with healing again from a years-ago car accident, learning how to just move around her room, I can’t help but wonder, what is the meaning to all of this?

Why do we get so caught up in loyalty to a corporation? A corporation, by definition, has all the rights of a human, without that very large organ in its chest pumping blood and life through it.

No heart.

Today, I pledge allegiance to the entity with no heart, to serve the soulless and the corrupt, in order that I make a tiny buck.

Read the rest

Wake Up Early, for a Change.

I woke up at 8:30am this morning.

This may not seem like a big deal. But since the topic of the month for blogging is change, this is a huge deal.

Change at it’s finest.

I usually get up much, much later.

Rising early has it’s benefits. More time to waste. Hot coffee as opposed to cold. More opportunities of things to do with my day.

Yesterday I actually did go hiking.

Today, I’ve been reading articles on joblessness, insanely high insurance prices for the uninsured, and what a certain blogger thinks jobs should be about.

Waking up early means more sunshine. More options. A nap later on if I’m so inclined.

Other than that, waking up is just that. Getting out of bed. Slurping some coffee. Sitting on the back porch watching the fat squirrels struggle to get their lazy butts up the barren trees in the backyard and the small finches leaping delicately from branch to branch.

I’ve been working on growing into change. Accepting what is. Not keeping myself a prisoner because of the outside circumstances of my life I have no control over. Enjoying this time, because someday I’m going to look back and slap my hand to my forehead and say, why didn’t I enjoy that time off?

I do this for the future me. The one that’s going to demand of me why I squandered my time. I’ll be able to say that I spent it all according to plan. I accepted what was and I relaxed into the present. I let the river of time change me into a smoother rock.

And future me will say, thank god. At least you didn’t give up, or stagnate, or spend your days depressed and forlorn.

Yes, I am not interested in money any more than it gets me shelter and food and some books and savings. So there isn’t a lot I will sacrifice my time for. It has to be just right. So all these entry-level “dirge” jobs can just wait for other new college grads to fill them up. Been there, done that.

We are so much more than what we do for green pieces of paper. Our identity is not cast off in ATM reflections. We have things to barter and trade and give. The least of us, so it seems, have much to give.

So if you feel you have nothing, or can’t keep up, look at how much you have that that man sitting on the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop doesn’t. You can share a smile or a penny or a cup of tea. Granted, you probably have friends and family, some pets. Some things you want to do before you die. While you’re unemployed, like so much of the work force is now, let’s do something about that.

Get out your pen and paper, hike up to a bench on the top of a hill, sit down and write. Plug in your amp and your guitar and thrash the windowpanes with wattage. Scream out your lungs. Write that screenplay. Watch those movies. Read those books. Run that marathon. These aren’t things you can only learn by working 9-5 for what someone else needs.

Your agenda should pertain to your own life, not paying the dues of a corporate ladder that has missing rungs, tilts against a different wall every few months, and isn’t maintained by any organization.

If all I can do is wake up at 8:30 am instead of noon, that’s a change for me. That’s a couple extra hours to ponder my navel. To sit and accept that we are all nothing. And nothing, is everything.

What to Do When Unemployed

I found this imminently pleasing: quit a lot of things in order to find your passion.

Life is about living, and I’ve spent too much of this last month paralyzed by my fear of making mistakes. Sometimes, like blogger Penelope Trunk, of Brazen Careerist states, you just have to do something, anything. Because essentially, if you freeze, nothing gets done.

Sometimes, like a tarot card reading for my husband recently said, “When you are ready, the master will appear.”

You have to wait until inspiration comes, but you have to do something, anything, in between.

If you’re paralyzed by which social group to get involved in, which job to look for, which charity to volunteer for, pick something. It’s a starting point. You can back out and try again if it fails.

Read blogs. Reach out to other people. Find mentors, and write to them. Don’t expect a response, the people who you want to mentor you are probably busy, but be grateful when you do get one. The person you admire who has time to respond to your inquiry is doing themselves a favor as well by answering. Any mentor knows that they need to teach in order to learn, as well as anybody else.

Who can you help? Look around you. You may think you isolated, on some type of barren straight, but you probably have some family, a sprinkling of friends, some old coworkers and high school or college buddies you still keep in touch with.  Lean on these people for support, or help them out to get yourself out of your rut. Schedule coffee dates to meet up with them.

Don’t focus on things you’ve lost. There’s a time to reflect, a time to mourn, but there’s also a time to move on. Some say a week, some say a month.  Sometimes it takes much, much longer: It’s really up to you.

What makes you happy? Build your life based on the interests and engagements you choose.

Read the Desiderata.

Read Sermon on the Mount. The Bible. The Koran. Buddhist or Tao literature. Whatever gives you spiritual strength. When you’re searching for the right way, you can’t rely completely on yourself. Man is not an island. Neither is she/he an igloo. Although sometimes we are all full of penguins.

Loafing tends to lead to more loafing. Get out and do something you want to do. Never mind whether it’s going to “lead somewhere” or is “the right step”. You never know what can happen in your day. Just get out of the house.

Sometimes that’s the most you can do.

Be creative. Make a list of things you can do outside of the house. Hike. Read a book in a coffee shop. Visit the library. Visit an old friend or family. Bake for a homeless person. Visit a town you’re unfamiliar with. Go to a bookstore, while they still exist, and plop yourself down in front of the magazine/literary section. Poke through stories and comics for a while.

What did you used to do in your free time as a kid, before all the “job” responsibilities and stresses got to you? Garden? Sweep leaves for a couple bucks? Clean out the fridge? Collect 30 books from the library and scour them in a week? Indulge in a new genre?

There are plenty of things to do when you’re not employed, and plenty of things besides sitting at the desk day after day, baggy-eyed and depressed, shooting off resumes and cover letters to jobs hundreds of other people are stabbing at the same time, jobs someone probably gave to their nephew before they even got around to posting it on craigslist.

Networking doesn’t have to be a chore. Friends of friends, friends of family, who knows what you have in your own six degrees of separation. Besides, what you do for a living is not necessarily what makes you happy. Who you are, and your attitude, make you happy. And if you’re happy, and see the world as full of opportunity, despite those angry or depressed moments you do inevitably have to live through, you’re more likely to end up somewhere you want to be in the future.

So much of where we are is a place we put ourselves through our own inhibition and lack of faith. We get stuck, we rely too much on what other people think, we get stuck in a routine and cater to boredom and lack of desire.

Sometimes it takes just a little seed of hope, some tiny iota of time spent on something you enjoy but fear you’ll never succeed at, to grow it into something you couldn’t imagine spending your time without.

Now that I’ve written out this advice to myself, I think I’ll swallow it like a good soldier.