A One Year Perspective: Making a Living on Unemployment

By Trish at Hungry Dog Heaven

I’ve attempted to write this blog entry a dozen times. But these feeling and thoughts have been hard to put into words.

I’m overwhelmed by the constant churning of my brain and heart. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about life – about what I want and what I need - about my legacy and my purpose. I want to be happy. I want to continue doing work about which I can be proud and that gives me opportunities to impact the world. I want to make a difference. I don’t want to be happy at the expense of someone else and I don’t want to succeed if by doing so I have to compromise my beliefs. I want to always stand up for what I think is right and take the road less traveled. I want to, at the end of my days, be proud of my decisions and have few regrets. I want my life to have mattered.

But, I feel like people are always waiting for opportunities to do things – waiting for nicer weather, more money, more time, etc. “I’ll do that when….”, or, “I can’t wait until…” But, while we’re doing all of this waiting, the world keeps going! Every time the sun sets, it takes with it our opportunities for that day. We cannot get them back.

We want our lives to be different, but are too complacent to work for change. We’ve been so conditioned to just accept our circumstances that we sometimes feel paralyzed to create a better reality. We want to be happy, but continue to look at life so negatively. Sometimes life seems to be stacking the cards against us. But, as long as we’re still here, can’t we shift our perspective to see the good in the bad? Of course, sometimes we’ll have to squint to see a grain of good, but it’s there – I promise you.

It has been a year today, August 11^th, since my husband was originally laid off. Had we spent the past year waiting for our luck to take a turn, or being overwhelmed with self-pity, we would have missed out on life. But I feel like this past year has given us the gift to think about the life we want. The challenge is in finding the road to our happiness. Not the happiness that others define, but ours.

I am slightly flustered. I feel like one life is not enough to do it all. But…I know that my first step is to do something and to appreciate my opportunity to do it – to live intentionally and take small steps to make life, not waste it.

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