The Yellow Brick Road Lies Just Beyond The Tall Weeds Sometimes

A story over the weekend in The Washington Post frustrated me to no end. It was titled “Stuck at Unemployed: When a Layoff Becomes a Lifestyle” and appeared in Saturday’s edition.

For me it has always been the opposite–stuck at EMPLOYED. I am not boasting when I say I have been pretty consistently employed most of my working life.

Now granted, these were not always awesome jobs. Sometimes they weren’t even great jobs. But they WERE jobs and working them enabled me to avoid the ranks of the unemployed.

I have never really understood those who are unemployed for long periods of time. I understand HOW they are–they oftentimes sit and wait and, yes, work hard, trying to find THE job. They search for THE job at the expense of A job.

When I was fired for the first time, I had another job lined up the same day. It wasn’t in the same career and it wasn’t something that terribly excited me. But I had a family to think of and they came first. Paying the bills took an immediate priority to living my dream job.

Maybe for me, the continued motivation is having 6 kids that depend on me. That is an awesome motivator. If I sit down and feel sorry for myself and wait for the perfect job, they start longing for things. I could never do that to them. I would never have the luxury to NOT be working all day long for them.

The first thing we all need to do is stay positive and motivated. The results are generally astounding if we do. No good can come of suffering all day with fright and pessimism.

One inspiration to me has been our babysitter. She is a self motivated teenager who is also helping her own parents through some rough times. She makes more money on a given day than many people I know make. Maybe that’s because she is up at the crack of dawn when she is needed, works long hours taking care of people’s children, and doesn’t ever complain about it.

In many ways, she is already a businesswoman well before the age of 20.

More of us need to take note of people like that.

Where there is a will, there is always a way.

And remember this more than anything else. Sometimes you have to walk a few weed covered paths before you connect to the Yellow Brick Road.