Life of the Unemployed

I bet you wonder what I do all day. Maybe you don't. Maybe you could care less.

I wonder what I do all day.

71 days have passed since my unemployment has begun...And, yes, let's face it, my last job was not what most of you would call a real job. That is the viewer's discretion.

I wonder what I do all day because the time passes. When someone asks me what I do, I smile as I wait for the answer to arrive. Each time it tickles my lips differently, without much warning to my own ears of what it will be.  And I love it.

It's currently 4:44pm, (I know what you are thinking, "what a brilliant moment to look at the clock". That's what I am thinking too). Let me reflect on my last 24 hours...

Around 4:44pm yesterday, I headed out of my NYC studio apartment (and by that I mean I left my sister's place). I grabbed a sandwich and headed for the NQR to catch a train to Union Square and then the L to Brooklyn. Wednesday nights between 6:30pm - 8:30pm I volunteer at "Make the Road", teaching a class to help Residents pass the Citizenship Exam, a program run by New York Cares. I love this opportunity to practice my spanish, although no offense Juan Luis, but I believe Domican spanish may require me to take another course. I love the enthusiasm of the students, I love my one Salvadoran participant (I am slightly biased) and do it all for the end of the night when they tell me "thank you, God bless and you better be here next week!"

Our New York Cares team had a little dinner afterwards at a local Colombian restaurant. As I picked up the menu, it hit me that 70 days had passed since I had had a "tipico" and I damn near cried at the site of black beans, rice and platanos. Dear little restaurante Colombiano, thank you, God bless you and you better be here next week!

I spent a lovely train ride home finishing up the last wonderful pages of a book I never wanted to end, but looking forward to delving into The Alchemist yet again.

Around midnight my bed welcomed me and I spent a little over an hour doing a few job searches comfortably and enjoyably on my Mac (RIP Dell Inspiron), reading about Peace Corps Response in Colombia, Idealist.org, and NPower. I fell asleep to a beautiful meditation.

Today, I woke up at 9:12am. Whenever you have the opportunity, I urge you to try to live by your own biological clock. I sipped on a strong cup of coffee and did a 25 minute meditation.

About an hour was spent tidying up around me, as my mind works best in an organized environment, and then sat back down to job search. Before I knew it, I had multiple pages open, documents started and my notebook was once again filled with scattered thoughts.

I took a break to head to the grocery store where my mind longed for simplicity. Who would have ever thought I would miss the days of a Gotera street market? Something just feels so good about eating locally grown veggies... but why was I buying them from a chain grocery store?

After more dedicated career research over an arugula salad sprinkled with portabella mushrooms, I picked up my leisure novel to take a little escape.  It was after reading the following, that you find me where I am now...

"It is possible to change the world and us. As we improve our own lives, and work toward having no regrets, we naturally improve the lives of all around us."

You would not believe how many different ways I have read, witnessed, watched, seen or more importantly experienced just that.

Happiness is a choice. It is not something attained by getting where you want to go, making a purchase or finding your soulmate. It is choosing to awaken it. It is enjoying the journey, being grateful everyday for what we have and letting others love us.

You can improve your life only by doing what will make you happy. Everyone has a different set of values for what is important to them. Being happy is easy, but it takes courage.

Step one is defining those values. Step two is working towards them, and doing so directly, not a roundabout way.

Courage comes in because step two is where most people get lost. And even with a GPS it is hard to get back on track.

I firmly believe in these principals and so what I have been trying to do everyday for the past 71 days is be a modern-day Siddhartha of happiness.

This is not to say I have not spent days lost, wandering and crying a river, because my friends will tell you I have. But I believe in using this time as an investment because I have faith that the payoff will be large. And if I am wrong, it will be a great big lie if I say I regretted the journey.

Being unemployed does not need to mean you are not doing anything. It does not need to mean you are not "working"- in the "being employed" sense of the word. I have taught myself to overcome a sense of guilt (because of the expectations of society) that I was feeling for being home "doing nothing" for 71 days. Am I using my time in a useful manner? Yes. Am I happy with who I am, where I am and what I am doing? Yes. So screw you society! (jk...kinda...) Eddie Vedder is more eloquent: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRUGvArWXLk

What comes next may sound like advice, which in fact, most people do not like or even accept...but this is my blog so actually this is a vow to myself:

Make a conscious effort to live your life by happiness. To me, this means making daily, hourly, minutely conscious decisions based on whether or not those choices will make you happy. See the glass half full. Let the rain come down and wash away your fears. Thank your enemy for he presents you an opportunity to practice patience.

Thank goodness I am unemployed.