Life Changing Events

If we are unlucky enough to be at the wrong place at the
wrong time, we experience a personal tsunami - a misfortune
of devastating proportions that sweeps away our routine
lifestyle and forever changes the world we know.

Yet despite the frequency of such events - the tidal waves
of Asia, the hurricanes of the Gulf Coast, the loss of life
in the Middle East, the wildfires and mudslides of
California - most of us are only indirectly affected. We
bleed for those who have lost everything, give what we can
out of our pocketbooks and our hearts, but our world is
essentially unchanged and we move along in our personal life
journey relatively unscathed.

The vast majority of us will never undergo the wrenching
jolt of a major disaster, natural or man-made. The sheer
size of the human race insulates millions of us from the
floods, the bombs, and the mayhem. For us, the life-changing
events we experience never hit the front page. Personal,
quiet disasters - divorce, death, bankruptcy, or
unemployment - change our lives forever but remain unnoticed
by all but our closest friends and family. We pick up the
pieces and try to get it together without government or
private succor and support.

It is the isolation of personal loss that is so emotional
destructive. We struggle alone to try to make sense of what
went wrong and how we can recover our equilibrium.

Others are sympathetic and wish us well but there is an
abyss between those who have a job and those who cannot find one. The longer we are out of work, the more alienated we
become. Even those who love us start to worry that there's
something wrong with us. They start to suspect that we're
not as motivated as we say we are. Everyone has plenty of
glib advice: "Have you tried . . . ?" Of course we have -
many times and always without success. We become more
disheartened as we analyze everything we've done and realize
we have tried every trick in the book and still cannot find
anything suitable.

Some of us get stuck in depression, anger, or paralyzing
anxiety. Our energy drains away and even the smallest action
becomes more and more difficult. As frustration and
financial pressures mount, we wallow in the unfairness of it
all and reminisce about how perfect everything was when we
had a job and a future and hope, wondering why all this had
to happen.

As with hurricanes and tsunamis and terrorism, the victims
are not responsible for the catastrophe they face. Life-
changing events do just that - change our lives, sometimes
forever. Change can be negative, fear-provoking, and
desperately uncomfortable. But, if we look closer, we'll see
it also has a positive face. Without change, our modern
world wouldn't exist. We would be living the way our
ancestors did. And while olden times may sound attractive in
their pristine simplicity, such times were filled with
disease, inequality and a raw brutality we could not stomach
today. We need to embrace change and, despite the turmoil it
brings, look for the silver lining hidden within the storm
clouds.

Although you now remember your job with nostalgic affection,
there were undoubtedly times that you wished you could quit.
Even if you loved what you were doing, any single job
position only taps into a small part of your potential.
Being forced to make a change allows you to develop other
domains of your personal character.

Try to analyze your interests and preferences and identify
things you would like to do which have not been utilized by
your prior jobs. Can you think of an industry or a
particular job title that might allow you to move in a new
direction? Think about, and complete some preliminary
research on, jobs in new industries that you might be able
to do. You may not have directly related experience but
there are common themes that permeate every kind of work:
the ability to communicate, to work as part of a team, to
learn rapidly, to be aware of details, to organize and
prioritize. If you pick an area of genuine personal
interest, you enthusiasm will clearly and naturally emerge
and that is something all employers seek.

The job hunting you have been doing may, without your
realizing it, have become routine and uninspired. The
experience of failure and the frustration of never receiving
positive feedback may have led to your merely "going through
the motions," already convinced, in your own mind, of the
futility of your efforts.

Taking a new direction can open up your job search tunnel.
Instead of beating your head against the wall and revisiting
every technique and lead you've tried before, moving into a
different environment may give you a new sense of purpose
and appreciation of your own potential. That is when the
positive effects of forced change can become a new source of
pleasure and satisfaction.

 Links For Unemployment/Job Search Sites