"If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen."Henry David Thoreau
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Drug Testing: A Workforce In Dilemma
When I began my working career, drug testing was not even a word combination. I had never been exposed to drugs beyond the point of alcoholic beverages, and then only on special occasions and holidays. To contemplate daily usage of some foreign substance ...
The Top 10 Reasons Your Staff Wants to Quit
From an employee’s perspective, management often conducts itself in ways that make no sense. When the economy is slow, jobs are few and far in between or people are fearful, staff will tolerate management behaviors and policies that are nonsensical (in ...
Working Harder and Longer
Keeping up with inflation was the challenge of the 1970s. As prices rose, wages increased and the middle class trod water to keep their heads dry. When we entered our recent recession, inflation was the least of our worries - we needed jobs, increased ...
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Many people today have lost jobs after decades of service; many others suffer within jobs they can see no way out of. In order to survive a painful job loss - indeed, any type of painful loss - we must come to some acceptance. How does one find acceptance amidst the humiliation, shame, despair, fear, grief and uncertainty job loss can invoke?
How do we accept financial insecurity threatening our lives and our family? Rarely, can we skip over our painful feelings, wave a wand and create new employment in short order. Often, we want difficult life situations to be some other way.
Yet, if we resist accepting the situation and our mixed bag of feelings we inevitably end up fighting ourselves and the world. Acceptance is the path back to peace.
As they say in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, "Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today... I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is suppose to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake."
We cannot force ourselves into peaceful acceptance. Coming to acceptance is often a volatile emotional journey occurring over time. To begin the journey toward acceptance try letting go of analyzing or attempting to "figure out" the "why's" of the situation and seek to trust.
Realizing every life experience has a purpose - even if beyond our knowing - helps pave the way to acceptance. Just holding what we cannot resolve or understand within our hearts moves us closer to acceptance. As we aspire toward acceptance of life’s challenges, grace gifts us with a measure of comfort and solace.
"My life is but a weaving between my Lord and me.
I cannot choose the colors He worketh steadily.
Oftimes He weaveth sorrow, and I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper and I, the underside.
Not till the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly
Shall God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful in the Weaver's skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned."
Author Unknown
The Blessing of Job Loss
One day, world-renowned psychologist, Carl Jung, had a friend arrive at his door wholly distraught from losing his job that very day. Carl Jung, invited his friend into his home and said, (with my paraphrasing), "Come. I'll open a bottle of fine Champaign
and we'll celebrate as surely, some great good will come about from this job loss."
Losing a job or feeling trapped within a job, is likely a blessing in disguise although in the moment the loss or the fear may seem insurmountable. When I lost my two retail stores after ten years of business, my $100,000., my marriage and my self esteem I thought this was one of the worst things that could happen to me in this lifetime.
Now, with the clarity of hindsight, I see the loss of my stores as Divine Intervention. By losing everything I thought I valued, I discovered what was really important to me. I lost every thing but found myself.
"Three earthly losses
which bring gain to the soul:
loss of a friend,
loss of health and
loss of riches."
"A Compilation of Triads," Volume I John F. Wright
Acceptance Opens Life’s Door
In their book, "Life Lessons," Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler write, "change...usually begins with a door closing, an ending, a completion, a loss, a death. Then we enter an uncomfortable period, mourning this completion and living in the uncertainty of what is next. This period is hard.
But just when we feel we can't take it anymore, something new emerges: a reintegration, a reinvestment, a new beginning. A door opens. If you fight change, you will be fighting your whole life. That's why we need to find a way to embrace change, or at least to accept it."
Through aspiring to accept life on life's terms we begin to move from feeling like a victim and blaming the world around us. We get glimmers of a larger purpose at work in our lives.
Through accepting our lives now, we learn to be kind to ourselves even amidst life's storms. Through acceptance we can find a measure of peace in this moment. Herein, we build the foundation of a life well-lived and build bridges to a new future.
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Industry Celebrates February as Apartment Careers MonthMarketWatch (press release)Employees often come from a variety of backgrounds. "No other industry offers a career that is portable and that welcomes people from so many professional backgrounds," she said. "Almost every town -- no matter how small -- has at least one apartment ...and more » |
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Hundreds of students attend ACT career fairBeckley Register-HeraldPack credits the success of Option Pathway with keeping at-risk students in school and allowing them to complete a training programs that lead to gainful employment. In the state of West Virginia, more than 168000 adults have participated in career ... |
Learnvest Living (blog) |
What's Up With Unemployment?Learnvest Living (blog)But, regardless, it will still be tough going for the economy and employment market to reclaim its former glory. Much of the job growth is in fields looking for low-wage labor: Many of the new jobs in the recent upturn are in industries like health ...and more » |
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