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Unemployment Blues: Are We Pre-Programmed To Be Productive?
Toiling away at our daily grind, we dream of running away to
Hawaii or the South Pacific where we can lie on the beach and do
absolutely nothing.
Some of us are lucky enough to take a vacation there and
temporarily cut ourselves off from the world of responsibilities
and demands and worries. We breathe easier, sleep deeper, eat
more heartily. It is truly paradise.
It's wonderful because we have a life waiting to be reclaimed
when we step off the plane. Our job is waiting for us and we go
back to work with renewed energy and zest from our long overdue
break.
It is like the first few days of unemployment, that honeymoon
period when we find ourselves with extra time on our hands and
no reason to get up early or fight the rush hour traffic. But
honeymoons are not designed to last forever and it is only when
they are over, that reality and the hard work of building a
marriage starts.
The obvious stressors of unemployment are widely recognized:
financial strains, the drudgery and frequent humiliation of job
search, the family disruption, the loss of self-confidence and
self-esteem. While none of these can be lightly dismissed, we
are going to concentrate for a moment on an area that is often
overlooked. It can cause inner turmoil, pain, significantly
increase the emotional fallout of layoff, and exacerbate the
depression, anxiety, and negative self-view that so often follow.
To feel productive seems to be an inherent human need. We feel
good about ourselves when we are contributing -- to our own
independence, to our family, to our community. Many of the great
discoveries, inventions, and explorations of history were made
by individuals born to family wealth who had no need to ever
lift a finger to ensure adequate self-support. Yet these
individuals wanted to contribute to the world in some way and
left their homes, worked through the night, and even died trying
to be part of some enterprise.
Those who sat back on their laurels, and never found any venture
to engage them, lead empty lives, drifting through their days
without personal value or commitment. Today we see their empty
faces in the society pages and read the tabloids to hear about
their drug problems and their tawdry efforts to find excitement
and meaning.
Those of us - most of us - who have no choice but to work, dream
of having enough money to have a choice. Few of us really want
to drift around the world without goals or ambition. We simply
want to do something meaningful to us rather than the career we
fell into which has long since lost its charm and excitement.
It is when that career, boring and humdrum though it may be, is
suddenly taken away, that we realize how much of ourselves is
invested in the role we have worn for so long. Our belief in our
own value is tied up and interdependent with our productivity.
We feel a vital part of our marital partnership, someone our
children respect and follow, an important person in our
community who has earned the right to voice an opinion or vote
for a principle. We bear ourselves with a certain pride in that
we are bonafide members of the working class and clearly
differentiate ourselves from those who fail to contribute: the
welfare class, the criminals, the idle rich, the various
parasites who dot the fringes of our society.
When we lose our job, the lines start to blur. Our sense of
personal importance starts slowly to fracture. We see the
reflection of ourselves in the eyes of our friends and family
start to change. While we concentrate on finding other work and
jumping through the multiple
Associated Websites
hoops required by any job search
campaign, we also withdraw more and more into ourselves, seeking
to escape the new image of ourselves emerging in the minds of
those around us.
As a vocational counselor, I heard a repeated litany of concerns
from spouses and family: "Since this happened, she's totally
changed . . . He's not the man I knew . . . I don't know who she
is anymore . . . he won't talk to me about what's bothering him
. . . I want my husband back. I don't care if he's working or
not . . ."
Have you, or someone you love, fallen into this trap?
Address the problem now, before a situation not of your choice
and for which you bear no blame, mushrooms into the too frequent
personal devastation of the unemployed - broken marriages,
family dispersion, substance abuse, shattered lives.
The discomfort and emotional pain of losing your job also
provides an opportunity to cement bonds and build strength if
you take action to address problems head on. Above all,
communication must not lapse. In fact, it needs to be expanded
and enriched. Reach out to family and friends, those who love
you as you are, "warts and all" as the saying goes.
Express your fears and your worries. Let them know how
uncomfortable you are and how disappointed you feel that you
cannot contribute to the family in the way you always managed in
the past. Seek out ways to be a productive, even if non-working,
member of the team. Take on new chores and responsibilities
around the house and with the kids. Pay extra attention to your
spouse. You may not be able to afford presents or a night on the
town, but you can give of your time and your appreciation, gifts
more valuable than anything you could buy at a store.
Share the rigors and discouragement of your job hunting efforts.
Those who love you want to share in your failures as well as
your successes. Encourage them to share their own feelings and
fears about your plight, and express their anxieties about the
future. Not only do we tend not to express our deepest fears, we
also tend not to consciously formulate and define them. They
just sit at the back of our minds as a faceless, nagging worry.
When we fail to bring them out into the open, where they can be
clearly defined and therefore contained, we live in a constant
state of unease. To comfort ourselves, we look for something or
someone to blame: "Everything was fine until she lost her job .
. . if he hadn't got laid off, I'd be registering for college
this year . . ." It is an easy slide from such vague thoughts to
full-fledged blame and you become the scapegoat on which all
problems can be hung.
If you are newly unemployed, take steps now to ensure that such
a direction is avoided. If you have been out of work for a
considerable period of time, and may have already seen this
pattern develop, take the time to stop it in its tracks.
Redirect your energies into developing a positive team spirit in
which all can have a voice and a contribution. It can turn the
destructive nature of unemployment into a lightning rod of
family cohesion, strength, and deepened affection.
About the author:
Virginia Bola operated a rehabilitation company for 20 years,
developing innovative job search techniques for disabled
workers, while serving as a Vocational Expert in Administrative,
Civil and Workers' Compensation Courts. Author of an interactive
and supportive workbook, The Wolf at the Door: An Unemployment
Survival Manual, and a monthly ezine, The Worker's Edge, she can
be reached at http://www.unemploymentblues.com
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