Life Strike

Imagine, if you will, that you are given a shopping list for 2 weeks worth of groceries:

Apples,
Lettuce
Potatoes
Onions
Burger buns
Granola bars
Fruit juice
Soup
Meat
Frozen pizza
Napkins
Milk
Cheese
Etc.

Now, imagine you just got out of your car and about to enter the store when you are told that you are to complete your list, but at any given moment you may be told to drop everything and get back to your car.

What do you do?

(stay with me, eventually my point will be revealed)

Objectively, I would consider you have an infinite number of choices that invariably boil down to 3 simple options
1. Try to get everything before you are told to leave.
2. Try to get one item and get out, then repeat as often as you can.
3. Try to gather a few items and repeat.

The folly in all of this is that you would never know when you have to stop, whether it’s right after you step in the door, or after you get milk and eggs and nothing else, or right before you pay for all of your groceries.

In a way, getting laid off is like this, never knowing when you will be recalled to a life that is more normal, with the “shopping list” consisting of a job and some other life goals, whether it means run a marathon, learn to play a guitar, or read 200 books a year, whatever. You never know when you will be told to stop, drop everything and return to a “normal” life.

I was essentially given a choice between finding a job and being better, and I chose the going for a job above all else (a one at a time method). Unfortunately pouring my heart and soul into finding employment thoroughly drains me to the point that I could probably write 3000 words a night and little to nothing else.

In retrospect, I believe this was right, but moving forward with my sanity, and my temperament being as important as paying the NetFlix bill, I am thinking of changing it up. I have recently decided to go for the whole list: run, read, learn a new skill, go to college for an M.S. or M.S.E., and look for a job.

I was listening to a Bill Simmons podcast (ESPN’s the Sports Guy), who was interviewing Seth Meyers, of SNL, about five weeks after the 2008 writer’s strike. Seth was talking about his life during the strike and how strange it was. He said nothing was accomplished, nothing was planned, he didn’t write, nothing, and he explained it away because the strike could end at any time; a scenario I find similar to unemployment.

Now, I know a lot of people are amazed by this concept –I have had 12 unplanned months off, why didn’t your life progress; kind of an abstract situation. Hell, my wife even talks about eventually taking 12 months off in light of my situation. In reality, it’s a crappy, pointless life when you don’t know if it’s going to end in 3, 65, 180, or 365 days. Troubling.

I know I will have the next month off… life begins anew.

Sam J., who is generally awesome, is a college graduate, a Midwesterner living in Arizona, and unemployed. He is a recreational runner, licensed Professional Engineer, an accomplished technical writer, as well as a freelance writer who currently writes for several blogs.