When Business Becomes Personal: the Mental Uncertainties of Unemployment
Its funny how human relationships can change so suddenly so fast in such dramatic ways. A few days ago, the same group of people sat in a formal meeting in an office discussing conflicts of business interests, mutual improvements, and concerns on performances, and a few days later, you are sitting around the dinner table discussing life in general, pains of working and hating current jobs, and plans for the (decidedly personal) future. The author has to thank unemployment for even the remote possibility of turning business clientele relationships into personal friendships.
Surely many people living paycheck to paycheck and have too many bills to pay, too many people to take care of would not have the luxury of saying this, but the author has to marvel a bit at just how great that sense of carefree relaxation feels after a year and a half of nearly non-step six-days-a-week work schedule. The ability to not have one's personal opinions burdened by interests of the workplace, forcing almost inescapable need for self-censorship at every turn, is truly as exhilarating as any sort of mental liberation as there can be.
Incidentally, there has been an increasingly global phenomenon of "travel sabbatical," the idea of a person quitting a job specifically to set aside anywhere between a few weeks to a year just for traveling. As mentioned above, this does take much resources and ability to save on the part of the disgruntled (and now unemployed) employee, but as far as those with the capability, the author does recommend such behavior. The reason, really, is as simple as looking for self-identity without the "noise" of daily to-and-fro of materialistic pursuits and conventional headaches of survival.
People, more often than not, overestimate the amount and costs of their individual needs and desires. A society filled with materialistic marketing of luxurious products encourage people to feel inadequate and inferior to others if they do not have certain products in their hands. A mentality of peer pressure and competition thus prevails that force everyone to outgun each other in materialistic wealth, financed by staying employments that hate but must keep for the salaries. The system has the incentive to maintain such an "employer's market" where people beg firms rather than the other way around.
The only way an "employee's market" can be created is for people to reduce their desires and truly redefine what makes them, for lack of better word, happy. The author would go so far to question the mental sanity of someone driving a nice car down the road and working a job that they absolutely detest. The car does not make them happy, it is just a materialistic pressure valve to justify them continuing to work in a condition that they cannot stand. The solution is simple: lose both the car and the job, the disappearance of hatred is certain to outweigh the sadness of losing the car.
with that said though, people do have certain needs that they cannot get rid of. To eat and to live in decent conditions, they must have some sort of income, and to discover themselves in places yet unknown (as the author has been very much keen and striving to for the past years and continuing to do so now) requires certain degree of capital investment in self-fulfillment. Thus, unemployment must also be the tough beginning of once again facing the unknown, taking up the risks of slowing inching forward in a field of darkness, and well, looking for jobs.
But at the very least though, the unemployed has hope and independence. He is seeking employment, and with that, the next experiences, in his own terms rather than being forced by the employer into certain behaviors. And for many who have built up differing experiences from the past, there could be much room for flexibility and possibility for self-adjustment that allow the job-seeker to satisfyingly restart their search for self in a completely different field, in perhaps a completely different locale. The job-seeker still very much has the chance to become anything he wants, despite obviously visible odds.
All this starts with letting go, letting go of what one is, what one has at this very moment. There will always be risks on the prospects not turning out as rosy as was expected, but one would not know until the situation is already present. Extricating oneself from the rat race with fellow beings on who is better, who is richer, who is fancier, and then the grander picture of both self and society will have a chance to emerge within one's perspective. But none of this can start until one faces voluntary unemployment, with all its uncertainties, ambiguities, and excitements.
Surely many people living paycheck to paycheck and have too many bills to pay, too many people to take care of would not have the luxury of saying this, but the author has to marvel a bit at just how great that sense of carefree relaxation feels after a year and a half of nearly non-step six-days-a-week work schedule. The ability to not have one's personal opinions burdened by interests of the workplace, forcing almost inescapable need for self-censorship at every turn, is truly as exhilarating as any sort of mental liberation as there can be.
Incidentally, there has been an increasingly global phenomenon of "travel sabbatical," the idea of a person quitting a job specifically to set aside anywhere between a few weeks to a year just for traveling. As mentioned above, this does take much resources and ability to save on the part of the disgruntled (and now unemployed) employee, but as far as those with the capability, the author does recommend such behavior. The reason, really, is as simple as looking for self-identity without the "noise" of daily to-and-fro of materialistic pursuits and conventional headaches of survival.
People, more often than not, overestimate the amount and costs of their individual needs and desires. A society filled with materialistic marketing of luxurious products encourage people to feel inadequate and inferior to others if they do not have certain products in their hands. A mentality of peer pressure and competition thus prevails that force everyone to outgun each other in materialistic wealth, financed by staying employments that hate but must keep for the salaries. The system has the incentive to maintain such an "employer's market" where people beg firms rather than the other way around.
The only way an "employee's market" can be created is for people to reduce their desires and truly redefine what makes them, for lack of better word, happy. The author would go so far to question the mental sanity of someone driving a nice car down the road and working a job that they absolutely detest. The car does not make them happy, it is just a materialistic pressure valve to justify them continuing to work in a condition that they cannot stand. The solution is simple: lose both the car and the job, the disappearance of hatred is certain to outweigh the sadness of losing the car.
with that said though, people do have certain needs that they cannot get rid of. To eat and to live in decent conditions, they must have some sort of income, and to discover themselves in places yet unknown (as the author has been very much keen and striving to for the past years and continuing to do so now) requires certain degree of capital investment in self-fulfillment. Thus, unemployment must also be the tough beginning of once again facing the unknown, taking up the risks of slowing inching forward in a field of darkness, and well, looking for jobs.
But at the very least though, the unemployed has hope and independence. He is seeking employment, and with that, the next experiences, in his own terms rather than being forced by the employer into certain behaviors. And for many who have built up differing experiences from the past, there could be much room for flexibility and possibility for self-adjustment that allow the job-seeker to satisfyingly restart their search for self in a completely different field, in perhaps a completely different locale. The job-seeker still very much has the chance to become anything he wants, despite obviously visible odds.
All this starts with letting go, letting go of what one is, what one has at this very moment. There will always be risks on the prospects not turning out as rosy as was expected, but one would not know until the situation is already present. Extricating oneself from the rat race with fellow beings on who is better, who is richer, who is fancier, and then the grander picture of both self and society will have a chance to emerge within one's perspective. But none of this can start until one faces voluntary unemployment, with all its uncertainties, ambiguities, and excitements.
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