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by (c) 2002 Nancy R. Smith
The best traditional wisdom of those who advise you when you lose
a job is "Looking for a job is a full-time job." That advice is well-
meaning because it attempts to counter laziness and depression
and keep you on your toes. No one should plop down on the couch
with a drink or a box of chocolates and watch sports or the soaps!
But that advice is misguided!
Yes, the traditional advice to make looking for a job your full-time
job is wrong! I am not talking about fulfilling your life’s purpose. If
you are looking for ways to fulfill your calling, your passion itself will
drive you to work on it constantly. If that is your situation, you need
read no further as this article is not designed for you!
But if you are looking for a job to support yourself, your family, and
perhaps even to support your calling itself, then making a full-time
job of that job search is both impossible and inadvisable, because
it makes you self-absorbed and self-centered. Let me explain:
The traditional advice creates a wrong focus.
* Making "looking for a job" your full-time job distracts you from
evaluating your life decisions. What is your career? What is your
calling? What is the reason for your being in this world? If you do
not have clear and passionate answers to these questions, then
you need to spend a good portion of each day pursuing those
answers. Maybe you can spend 50% of your time job-hunting so
that you can put food on the table, but spend the other 50% doing
this inner work that needs to be done.
* Making "looking for a job" your full-time job causes you to view
everyone you know or casually meet as someone who might be
able to “do something for you.” You can easily begin to see others
as utilitarian objects rather than as human beings in relationship
with you.
What should you do NEXT?
Activities like these clear your brain and help you to see things
differently.
They will also energize you for tomorrow’s job-hunting tasks.
2. Do something for someone else. Do something you may have thought
about doing but "never had the time." Not every good deed requires a
long-
term commitment that you would have to give up when you get a jog. Go
serve in a soup kitchen. Sign up to be a substitute teacher. Visit an
elderly,
house-bound person – surely you know at least one! Spend an afternoon
babysitting for a harried mom.
Activities like these take your focus off of yourself and create
relationships
– even temporary ones – that nurture your inner being.
3. Evaluate your job, your career, your life. Once when I was unemployed, I
spent about two hours a day for two weeks doing this kind of inner work.
It
was nourishing, encouraging, life-enhancing. There are many excellent
resources available to help you do this – two of my favorites are:
Friend of the Soul: A Benedictine Spirituality of Work by Norvene Vest
Creating the Work You love: Courage, Commitment and Career by Rick Jarow
Spend 100% of your time actually LIVING your life. Look for a job as much of
the time as is necessary and potentially productive. But find your identity
within, not in the job market.
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