Week 15 - I think I have lost the ability to work and earn a living, after being unemployed for two years. I feel deeply under-confident and find it hard to face people. What do I do?
The World Rx, 7 of Swords Rx, Temperance
The beauty of an unfinished business is that it gives us a chance to reconsider what we once wanted.
You believe that your story was rudely interrupted and ruptured by the hands of fate, or forces beyond your control. Maybe. But it is not without reason. The path ended for a pause. But instead of looking within, you chose to look around you.
It is very easy to get disheartened without work in a world that values certain kinds of vocations over others. You are not a victim to your joblessness. You are victim to a system that believes you need to justify your existence with a job.
To work is not the same as having a job. Many people work all day but do not have jobs. Many others have jobs but do not really work. What is work? What is a job? And which of the two, do you want?
It is important to know that life doesn’t just throw answers at us. It also asks us questions we are too afraid to face. You are unable to face the world because you have not faced the part of you that is asking you, “what next?”. This is an answer that can only come when you have turned away from the need to be someone in the world to becoming who you need to be for yourself.
Employment can give us social prestige, confidence, an ego boost and of course, money. There are also things that employment does not give us. The key is to know what we need and then weave the threads of employment in a way that supports those needs without compromising on them.
What do you need? It is a simple question with an ever-evolving answer. If you can answer this for yourself and find ways to give it to yourself, confidence will take care of itself. You will have a why, a how, a when, a where and a what around which you can create a new story, a new narrative and a new character for yourself. You see, your unemployment is not the real problem. Your lack of a personal narrative is. You don’t know who you are, now, that you no longer are that which you once were.
Give yourself a new story. Build a new character sketch that you can step into. Make yourself a victim or a victor or just a by-stander. But create a world. A truth. A journey. Centre it around your needs. Write and re-write the drafts as you move through sunsets and sunrises. Tell and re-tell your story as you meet others. Live out your words and see if you want to keep them the same or change them with each day. Do something in the direction of your future. Grow towards the sun of life’s promise for a better tomorrow. This is the “work”. A “living” will be earned. The confidence will come. It might look different from what you’ve known it to be. But it will fulfill you just the same.
Parool. Thank you. Just what I needed to read. Saving it.
So well said, Parool. Thank you for writing this!