by Richard N. Bolles,
Author, 2002 What Color Is Your Parachute?
In the wake of the attack upon U.S. soil September 11, 2001,
over 2,000 U.S. innocents lost their lives, and some 300,000 of
us lost our jobs. Lucky us, to even be alive!! But now we have a
task to do.
The New World We Live In
The first is, to sit down and mentally prepare ourselves for what
lies ahead. We need time to think, meditate, and recollect. Many
of us lost our job without one minute of warning. One minute we
were happily employed; the next minute, we were out of work, as
- - in some cases - - our whole industry virtually imploded. We
need time, as we say, "to lick our wounds." We need time to
meditate about the shortness and uncertainty of life. We need
time to consider what we really want to do with the remainder of
our lives.
In the wake of September 11th, we find ourselves hunting for
work not merely in a new industry (it may be) but in a new world.
We will find jobs, but we will find them in a new world that has
been changed forever.
We hunt for work now in the terrorists' world. They designed it,
not we. They made the rules for it, not we. Terrorists are people
with jobs, jobs which produce a product. The product is terror.
Their chosen vocation is to export that product to countries
whose people or governments they either fear or hate. Terrorists
are people with jobs, and they are very good at their jobs. Be it
commandeering airplanes, or mailing anthrax, or destroying
buildings. Whatever work we choose, we need to be as good at
our jobs as they have already proved they are with theirs.
They are good at their jobs because they know how to cause
people to fear common things which used to seem so harmless:
air, water, the mail, buildings, airplanes, cars, subways, foreign
places, all manner of public gatherings at home, and the like.
What they are doing, if you stop to think about it, is replacing our
chosen faith with an earlier religion: animism, characteristic of
almost all primitive people, including our own ancestors.
We had 'risen', over the centuries, to a 'higher' religion, which
recognized Abraham as the father of us all: Judaism, Christianity,
and the Muslim faith. But now, Islamic terrorists have thrown us
back to that earlier religion and faith: animism. It was, and is, a
view of the world where every inanimate object may be feared:
trees, mountains, lightning, stones, etc. because spirits occupy
them or are at one with them. And they are not always good
spirits.
Hence, animists fear objects (or more precisely, the spirits that
are in them or that have taken their form). With the advent of
September 11th, the terrorists have turned many of us into
animists - - in addition to whatever else we may be.
Our air, water, the mail, buildings, airplanes, cars, subways, etc.
are no longer innocent in our eyes. They may - - now - - harbor
'spirits.' Spirits, in this case, that are to be feared because they
are out to harm us - - suicidal-men-spirits or deadly,
bio-chemical-spirits. (I speak metaphorically, of course.)
Well, what are we to do, now that animism, since September
11th, is again abroad in the land - - thanks to terrorists? There
are two outcomes possible, with traditional animism: "Spirits could
occupy the bodies of living men and animals, causing either
illness or insanity, but they often imparted higher wisdom."
(www.williamjames.com)
And there are our choices, right there, about this new world: what
obsesses our thinking: illness or the seeking of higher wisdom.
If we stay fixated at the 'illness' level of worry, we are undone.
Help and healing can only come from our wringing what wisdom
we can out of all of this: a more proper valuing of people over
things, a more proper valuing of love and compassion over
greed, a more proper appreciation of the shortness of life, and
the uncertainty of the time of our death. Etc. None of these
things are new; they were in the world long before terrorists. But
they have now snapped back into perfect focus in the forefront of
the minds of many of us, as we make our way in this new world.
That's wisdom.
Wisdom changes everything. Job-hunting in the world before
September 11th, used to begin with making lists, making phone
calls, going out and beating the pavements. But if any wisdom
has come from September 11th about this new world we now
have to learn to live in, it is that job-hunting (now) begins with
people.
Before hitting the pavements, first go to your best friend or
partner, sit down beside them, hold their hands, tell them how
much you love them, how much you regret the times you
neglected them, ask what they are wrestling with these days, get
them to talk, give them a sympathetic ear, learn to know them all
over again. hug them at great length, prize them with your eyes.
On September 11th, over 5,000 people lost this privilege. You
still have it. Treasure it.
If You Just Lost Your Job:
Some Quick Tips for this New World
Whenever events like September 11th occur, they cause the
equivalent of an earthquake in the job-market. Whole industries
go on 'life-support' and are not fruitful places for the job-hunter
to look. But at the same time, whole industries come off 'life
support' and flourish. If, in the wake of September 11th, your
industry went on life-support, do not beat yourself up by
restricting your job-search to just finding a job in your old
industry. It may not be there.
Instead, notice what other industries are flourishing. If you are
out of work, you do well to pay huge attention to which stocks are
flourishing, and which are languishing. That often is a clue as to
who is hiring. You also do well to pay huge attention to the
newspapers and the news on TV, radio, or the Internet, to notice
which products or services are suddenly feeling a ground-swell
of demand. They also offer clues as to who is likely hiring.
Go to the job-posting sites on the Internet, not just to look for
particular jobs, but - - as a part of your research - - to notice
which industries are now appearing on the job-boards again and
again. All of this presumes you know a simple fact: that you have
basic skills, like advising, budgeting, developing, illustrating,
auditing, coordinating, diagnosing, fixing, lecturing, driving,
negotiating, painting, planning, recruiting, selling, singing, typing,
trouble-shooting, writing, etc., that are transferable from one
industry to another. If this concept of transferable skills, is
unfamiliar to you, then run not walk to get your hands on a copy
of my book What Color Is Your Parachute? updated annually. (In
the 2002 edition, just out or just about to be 'out,' this material is
explained on pages 159 - 175.) Read, mark, learn and inwardly
digest it. This concept is your key to transferring from one
industry to another - - from the industry that downsized to an
industry that is expanding.
Throughout your job-hunt in this new world pay constant
attention to your emotions. In the wake of September 11th such
emotions as fear, depression, insomnia, anxiety, grief, despair,
listlessness, decreased energy, feelings of estrangement from
one's loved ones, have multiplied to a worrisome level. If you do
not have a health-care professional to assist you with such
emotions, there are many websites that can help you with useful
perspectives and helpful advice; just type one of those words - -
e.g., "listlessness" - - into your favorite search engine (like
Google's super-powered engine, http://www.ilor.com), and see
what it turns up.
If you are a person of faith, now is the time to take those
'Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes' out of the mothballs, and put
them on. God has dealt with terrorists for over 4,000 years. Find
a church and pastor, rabbi, or Muslim cleric, or other, who knows
that, and preaches radiant joy. There are such places. Keep
looking until you find one.
R.N.B.
"Taken from the website www.Jobhuntersbible.com. Used with Permissiion of
the site-owner, Richard Bolles, author of What Color Is Your Parachute (2002 edition).
