This was a tough week for me. It seems like the life I am trying to build isn’t happening fast enough and I started to get discouraged. I’m sorry to say that I can’t tell you a great tale of victory of how I “turned it around,” had a great spiritual awakening and went on to have the most fabulous, amazing time of my life. I actually had some moments this week where I just wanted to get drunk and forget my troubles while lamenting, “poor me… poor me… pour me a drink!”
Shakespeare said, “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Sometimes, nothing changes but the way I look at it.
Thoughts are like a raging river. I can stand on the side of the river and watch them go by or I can fall in the river and get swept away. When I fall in the river and get swept away, it sometimes takes friends to pull me out.
There is a saying whose origin is unknown that has often been attributed as a Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.” Every day we read more bad news about people loosing their jobs, loosing their homes or both. With never-ending wars, corporate crimes and political greed and corruption, it seems like every day there is a new reason to give up hope.
We are the people who feel the sting of these troubling times and many people are finding it ever more difficult to keep their heads above water.
I know how fortunate I am to have a job and make a point to never lose gratitude. So, I cannot say that I know completely how it is to be looking for work in the midst of this economic crisis but I am well aware of how that could change at any moment. Plenty of my friends have been caught in the wave of layoffs in my industry.
I do have some experience looking for work when I was younger. During the Dot Com boom I looked for a job for two years. I remember well how the frustration, anxiety and depression I felt. This was before my “spiritual awakening,” so to speak, and I was still caught up in my “victimhood”. In spite of that, I was well aware of how my survival depended on not giving up, so I kept moving forward in spite of myself.
It’s funny how sometimes, when it is absolutely essential, we can pull ourselves out of our distorted mindset and take action.
