Are you waiting?

Waiting has got to be one of the most difficult things to do in life. Our modern selves are seemingly hardwired for immediate action, gratification, or fulfillment of goals, and when we aren't able to move in the direction we wish, our wires start to smoke. Going through a state of unemployment is perhaps the most difficult of waiting periods. I can think of other anxious lengths of time when waiting is hard (e.g., birth of a child, test results, etc...) but waiting for a job, regardless of how active your job search is going, can be excruciating.

Reflecting on my previous post, I couldn't help but think about how precious a commodity time is for me. Waking up this morning, sitting on the sofa to read a book with my son, I noticed that the precious minutes of the morning were spent doing something I truly enjoyed. In this case, I didn't have to wait to do something that made me happy.

The realistic side of waiting for work is that financial resources decrease, emotional pitfalls are many, and personal feelings of self-worth diminish. Statements about ourselves are so tied with what we do for work, so during a period of joblessness, we no longer have a definition of who we are. That, of course, is our primary mistake: we are so much more than what we do for eight hours of paid work.