The lens you see your life through
At my mother’s memorial service I said that she saw the world through Chardonnay colored glasses, and my sibling gasped. While I don’t advocate a lubricated life by any means, I do avow adjusting the lens makes all the difference in the world.
Start with the statistics, right now in the United States, there are 13.3 million unemployed people. Ageism is at work everywhere not just because employers are ageists, more importantly these are the ones whose salaries have been on the rise for years, and so represent the highest paid. So they are being replaced by the lowest paid. Do you know how many sources, clients, and friends I have that have lost their jobs or fear losing their jobs at this very moment – too many to count here.
Now move to the reality – change is good. Everybody has been stuck on a treadmill huffing and puffing their way to the next pair of shoes or second home or what have you, and honestly, I don’t believe anyone is happy. Instead, like Jimmy Carter is often quoted as saying, we are in a malaise. Or let’s just call this a fat depression. Because I don’t hear apathy amongst my comrades I hear despair.
So let’s just say the doctor comes in and flips the lens and says, now what do you see? And let’s say the lens is this filter – you have been stuck in a job that is not serving you or the people you work for because everyone has lost sight of what they are aspiring to be or do in this world. You have been fired – you are scared you will lose your house – you are worried about your children’s future – you are frankly paralyzed by all the uncertainty that is around you.
To quote Chevy Chase in Caddyshack – “Stop thinking…let things happen…and be…the ball.”
The lens you need in your life is faith, faith that you are worthy, that things will be okay, and that the worst case scenario is even not that bad. Allow yourself to sit with pen and paper (or keyboard) and push yourself to confront the worst case scenario and then when you see it on paper – take a deep breath. Because the scales fell from my eyes a few months ago and I have not looked back – my mother died two years ago, my city almost flooded six years ago, my long marriage ended and I never gave birth to a child, and guess what I got fired from my job that I worked so hard at for so long and GUESS WHAT?
The sun came up this morning, the bayou was lapping against the shore, a pelican was circling for food, I saw friends in the park, one who wants to adopt a child (like Tin!), and life has a way of inspiring you – and I would say inspiring you more in its adversity than ever in its waxing states, so adjust the lens, take a deep breath, and just go with the flow (even if it looks like it is going down the drain).
There is so much beauty in the world, in the souls of our loved ones, in life, blink and you might miss it.
December 7th, 2011 at 1:03 am
I agree with your sentiments. I continue to see good people in their 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and 60’s who have been out of work for so long. It is the ones in their late 50’s and 60’s that pain me the most because they seem to be confronting their new reality that they may never work again and they wait for their chance to collect Social Security. Despair or fear has given way to that sunken feeling that a retirement they didn’t want has come to them of not being productive and contributing member of society and then what is one’s purpose? And their SS check is not going to support the lifestyle they had been living when they were employed. It is very hard, if not impossible for them to view their situation through a different lens. Welcome to the new norm.