* on losing a job

One of the things I had not planned on in this life of mine was to be anything less than spectacular in the jobs I had in life. This has not been the case, at least according to some of the people I’ve worked with. And why is this? There certainly were a variety of things going on in every case. Enough that it’s taken me some time to sort through them all well enough to at least make some sense of it all. There’s also some of my own realities that I’ve had to first figure out (with the help of some wise souls) and slowly work on. Actually, at times I’ve worked on them very hard, but I find progress has been slow. More like obtaining wisdom than any quick fix sort of thing. And humility. I’ve found it not always easy to come to grips with the reality of who I am and have become as I’ve moved through life lo now for over half a century. For someone who never planned on being laid off, this has now happened several times.

So as I ponder what comes next (which I’ve learned to put a much shorter timeline on), I feel one of the things I bring is the wisdom from having had to experience things I had not sought, of “being on a journey I had not planned on” as I said to try to describe it all as one of the jobs I’ve had came to a sudden, unexpected and very disappointing end. In a world that emphasizes one success after another, onward and upward, achievement, etc., I know some of this. But I also know what failure feels like. What it means to be really, really disappointed. What it means to find oneself in deep hole and then having to figure out how to crawl out of it. Where to go for help and then struggling with the challenge of making use of it. What happens when it feels like you’ve lost your resilience and then figuring out how to work on getting it back again.

I try to remember this in the teaching I do. I also have this to bring to what comes next.

Which is the question I’m seeking answers to at this point. Again.