Here in Michigan, our unemployment rate is first in the nation at 14.9%. Yikes. Lots of people are staying in jobs that they might otherwise leave. So what do you do if your job requires you to do the work of two or more people, your pay has been cut, you’re way underemployed?
Martha, for one, is using her less-than-optimal job as an opportunity to do the work she’s really interested in: “my personality overhaul,” as she puts it. A self-described “worry wort,” her impressive stress-generation skills led her to begin meditating a few years ago. Her anxiety began to go down, and she started feeling much more comfortable around people.
As she developed a daily routine of “following her breath,” simply paying attention to how her chest feels as it rises and falls, she began noticing. Noticing? Noticing what?
“Well, I just notice things a lot more than I used to. Wait — that sounds lame. What I mean is, I used to go in my office at work and shut the door. I would stay in there all morning. It’s so awful down there. Everybody’s so depressed. I really have no idea if I’m going to get laid off in three months or not. But I noticed last week I don’t shut my door any more. I’m still worried, but I’m realizing that everyone else is, too.
“I’m talking to people now. What does that have to do with the meditation? Maybe nothing, I don’t know. It’s just that before, I never thought much about what people were thinking. But lately I’m paying more attention to the expressions on people’s faces. I’m learning things about people that I had no idea were going on.
“It’s too bad, because half of us will be gone by the end of the year, and I’m just now starting to get to know people. I like them a lot. Well, even if I never see most of them again, I’m glad I’m going out this way, instead of staying holed up in my office.
“And that, to me, is what it's all about.”
Martha, for one, is using her less-than-optimal job as an opportunity to do the work she’s really interested in: “my personality overhaul,” as she puts it. A self-described “worry wort,” her impressive stress-generation skills led her to begin meditating a few years ago. Her anxiety began to go down, and she started feeling much more comfortable around people.
As she developed a daily routine of “following her breath,” simply paying attention to how her chest feels as it rises and falls, she began noticing. Noticing? Noticing what?
“Well, I just notice things a lot more than I used to. Wait — that sounds lame. What I mean is, I used to go in my office at work and shut the door. I would stay in there all morning. It’s so awful down there. Everybody’s so depressed. I really have no idea if I’m going to get laid off in three months or not. But I noticed last week I don’t shut my door any more. I’m still worried, but I’m realizing that everyone else is, too.
“I’m talking to people now. What does that have to do with the meditation? Maybe nothing, I don’t know. It’s just that before, I never thought much about what people were thinking. But lately I’m paying more attention to the expressions on people’s faces. I’m learning things about people that I had no idea were going on.
“It’s too bad, because half of us will be gone by the end of the year, and I’m just now starting to get to know people. I like them a lot. Well, even if I never see most of them again, I’m glad I’m going out this way, instead of staying holed up in my office.
“And that, to me, is what it's all about.”
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