Satisfaction

Depending on the state for your income is an interesting experience. It's even more interesting when the state unemployment benefits start running out. It starts the imposing a change on your behaviors, in your way of thinking, of just what you're willing to do to make ends meet.

When I was first let go, I first only was looking for work in my field and only at the same level or higher. I was encouraged by the unemployment system to look for jobs I was trained for, had the skill sets for. I was aiming high, so to speak. But now with benefits set to run out in the near future, those ideas are "put to the question." Do I want to try and just get by on my savings and hold out for a great job, or do I need to start widening my search and exploring other options for employment.

It's a very interesting time for increasing self-examination. You are forced to take account of everything your are qualified for, and you're capable of, and also those talents/skills that you lack. You realize that the time you spent doing one thing eliminated time devoted to something else, which at the time seemed like a good idea but right now maybe culinary school should have been a more serious option.

You also start facing just what you are willing to do. You find you have biases against different industries (often for good reason). There are just some places that are a last resort, and others that you just can't stomach the thought of working for at all. McDonald's springs to mind. And it's a curious thing, trying to decide at what point are you uncomfortable enough to take seriously an opening busing tables and washing dishes. At what point are willing to work for only X dollars an hour? At what point are you willing to live with 6 college students to make the rent cheaper?

And it strikes me that I'm being a bit pathetic.

Really. I mean, I'm worried about what sort of place I can live in and what I need to make in order to live with a certain level of comfort. But I'm not considering eating 1 meal of rice and beans a day to make ends meet. I'm not thinking of selling everything and living out of my backpack on the street. I'm not going to have to sell myself to a human trafficking ring to pay off my debts. Even in my aimlessness, my "poverty" I'm still quite well off.

So is it really me facing my own pride here? Am I too good for a job in fast food, or pumping gas, or being a migrant worker? In reality, though I don't want those jobs, ultimately I'm not too good for any job. Because ultimately that's a terrible and mistaken question. People do jobs. Some people need to do the dirty ones. But that doesn't make them less honorable. Jobs don't define people. But we like them to. One of the biggest complaints I heard about Americans while abroad was that the first things they ask are "What is your name," and "What do you do?" Culture tends to be status conscious, whether that's by hanging out with the right crowd, or having noble parents, or earning loads of money, we tend to try and find ways to value people socially. And in nearly all cases, the final purpose is not to purely assign value, but to see where we fit in and how many people we can put beneath us. But that is entirely a human invention, and of no real or lasting value at all.

Now there is something to be said about being gifted by God and not using those talents. If God gives you the blessing of leadership and you are complacent, you are scorning God's gift, and that is definitely a shame. If you are blessed with wealth, but lack the compassion to share it when needed, that too is shameful. And if you are jealous because God has made someone a genius and not you, that too is shameful.

I'll finish by quoting my favorite book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes, which sums up things in such a clean and simple way that I am struck every time I read it:

"Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him - for that is his lot." Eccl. 5:18

Here's hoping that everyone can eat, drink, and find contentment with their good, albeit toilsome, labors.