I've been thinking a lot today about a story I read of a man who had a dream. He believed in his dream and in himself so much that he went out to visit some banks asking for a loan to bring his dream to fruition. He went to more than one. He had to - the first one turned him down. Actually, the first three hundred or so turned him down. But he kept asking because he kept believing.
Finally, the man convinced some bank to finance his dream. It was pretty fortunate for us that this bank did, because that man took that loan and went out and built Disneyland and you know the rest of the story. I am trying to get inside Walt's head and think about how he dealt with rejection after rejection. I remember reading that he was actually in bankruptcy proceedings around the time when he was asking for this money. They must have thought he was crazy. But what did he think?
Well, he obviously thought he had a good idea. He obviously thought his dream could become the dreams of many and he obviously thought he could make people happy. And that is the Disney Corporation’s mission statement: To Make People Happy. And they succeed in the parks, in the movies, on TV and radio. They succeed everywhere. But their success is based on a man who started out small and knocked on doors and filled out applications. But most of all, that man kept on trying. He never gave up. He didn't have any more hindsight than any of us do today. What he had was a vision and what he had was perseverance. What he had was total, unshakable faith in himself and he was not going to take no for an answer.
How many of us share that ability today? How many of us stop immediately when someone tells us no? How many of us are ready to give up when the job search produces no call backs, no interviews and certainly no jobs? Who among us is ready to throw in the towel when we look at our 401Ks or read about the ongoing wars or receive our tax bills? Not many of us are going to get raises this year and for those who manage to stay employed in this recession, pay cuts or the loss of precious benefits may soon be a reality. It's very difficult to stay focused and positive when important things are crumbling around us.
But if we give up hope in ourselves and in our abilities, what do we become? We become just another person willing to get by with little. We become just another person willing to accept a 'no' from the bank who stands between us and our dreams.
Life isn't about surviving; it's about living and living to the fullest. It's about believing in yourself enough to keep knocking on doors and knocking down doors until your dream is a reality. And believing in yourself is not a quality that is limited to superstars like Walt Disney. Because when that whole venture started, it was just him and a mouse. And a dream.
I was listening to the radio one recent Sunday morning when the hosts were talking about happiness. According to them the word happy is a derivative of words like happenstance and haphazard. When I checked out www.dictionary.com, the definition of happy consisted of terms like delighted, pleased, joy, felicitous, and flavored by fortune.
Be that as it may, none of the terms really describe what happiness really is. Is it marked by fortune as in "I'm happy because I won the lottery" or "I'm happy because I got a new job" (this I wouldn't know because I still haven't found one). The song Happiness in the stage production "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" leads us to believe that this is true as happiness, they sing, is two kinds of ice cream, finding a pencil, catching a firefly and setting it free. The Peanuts gang believes that happiness is caused by events.
Or is happiness really a state of being or a state of mind? Some people say that it is. You can will yourself to be happy and changing your attitude will allow you to be happy...or not.
Personally, I think happiness is a little of both. I believe that attitude is everything and that you can will yourself to have a positive attitude. I do this by having gratitude for everything in my life...yes even the fact that I recently lost a job that I loved. I am grateful that I have additional time to spend with my kids and my dogs and I am grateful that I have enough for today. I don't worry about tomorrow because truly it does take care of itself. Besides that, tomorrow is something that I've never come face to face with and most likely never will. I just put that out of my mind.
But I'm happier when good things happen to loved ones and to me. I'm happier when I am doing things I enjoy like writing. I'm happier when my house is clean and organized. But when things are a little chaotic around here - what am I? Certainly not miserable. When I'm doing things like cleaning up the yard after my two big dogs, am I bitchy and mean? Nope...well, okay some days I am, but not regularly. On a regular basis, I'm pretty consistent in my moods. Would that be because I am happy? Maybe. Or maybe I am just a positive person who wants to look at that proverbial glass as always overflowing - not half anything. Maybe I just want to believe that things truly are going to be okay no matter what happens because even if they're not - I'll have fooled myself into being positive for just one more day.
I looked around the grocery store today at the people making their last minute Easter purchases and I really couldn't tell if they were happy or not. Few were smiling, some were noticeably grumpy. Is that based on the fact that the store was overflowingly crowded and the weather cold and rainy? Or is it based on the fact that economic indicators say more of the same for a long, long time?
I don't know the answers to this but what I do know is that as I've been experimenting with smiling at random people recently - at the store today and on the DC Metro last week (don't ever do that - whoa - experiment smiling anyplace but there) people just looked away. I immediately knew it wasn't something they experienced on a regular basis. They didn't smile back; they just reacted by looking elsewhere as if I was crazy for being happy when the world's falling apart.
Maybe I am. But I'm going to keep on with my experiment. I am going to stay positive and smile at people and keep believing that everything is exactly how it is supposed to be in this world. And if that makes me crazy, so be it. And if that makes me happy, all the better.
Evidently the economy and I are not of the same mind set lately. I was sure that the job market would be picking up quickly after March 1 with many companies starting new quarters and fiscal years. I was wrong. So I am in about the ninth week of my job search and I'm staying relatively peaceful and serene through the process. Here's a quick layout of a day in the life of a job searcher and maybe this will help you with your own search.
Wake Up at the Same Time - Every Day!
It helps to have kids who need to get on the schoolbus or else I may never get out of bed. But once I am awake and get the kids on the bus, I stay up. I do not go back to sleep no matter how tired I am. If I was working, I wouldn't have that luxury (although many people were known to perfect the art of sleeping with their eyes open at my last job). Since looking for a job has now become my job, I treat it as I would any other job and I give it my all.
Routines are Important
These are keeping my job search on target and are keeping me focused. I check my email accounts first to see who wants to hire me usually followed by periods of banging my head because nobody does (just kidding - about the head thing anyway). I check the job boards but I use www.indeed.com because I refuse to search through all of them when this site does it for you. I then check www.Craigslist.com because sometimes indeed doesn't catch those jobs. Then I move onto facebook, Twitter, and linkedin. I update my status because I want to make sure I am in the forefront of every one of my connection's minds. Then I check my Yahoo account because that is where the writing jobs are sent (to my mailbox).
BYOC
What's that? BYOC = Be Your Own Cheerleader. That's what I do - I stay positive by remembering all the things I have today. I don't dwell on what I don't have. I am grateful that I have an opportunity to write freelance and that I have many networking groups to attend. When I ran out of networking groups to attend, I started my own. Had a good group too and I received positive feedback from everyone who attended and who presented.
Get Out
I mean get out of the house but you can also get out of town, whatever works. I simply do better when I treat my job search as a real job complete with lunch breaks, visits to the local cafe and mini-breaks thoughout the day to chat with friends. Unfortunately, the bulk th this last one is done via IM or phone calls but it is still chatting and they are still my friends. Today I am going to take a break and take Clay the dog to get his nails cut.
Do Your Part
Many years ago I reached the conclusion that I am not responsible for the outcome of anything. I am only responsible for the effort I put into any given task. So I use that philosophy when I am in the midst of the job search. I do my part to find a job and earn money and I simply leave the rest up to God and the Universe. This takes tremendous faith but I have been practicing it for a long time so it sort of comes natural. (Note - this does not mean I do it perfectly - quite the opposite at times.) I read blogs and join forums so I can stay on top of the writing field. I network, reach out to friends and I just pretty much show up every day grateful to be here and have my needs met and willing to accept whatever happens because I know from experience that however it turns out is how it's meant to be.
So that works for me - I stay sane albeit unemployed. But I do accept that as temporary and I am grateful for the extra time. I have found creative, inexpensive ways to have fun with my kids (instead of renting a condo at the beach, we took the train to Washington for Spring Break and scoped out all the free museums), And I have found my writing voice which I had lost while I was working for a big corporation. And for that, I'll be forever grateful as it came in the form of a lousy economy and I wouldn't have recognized it unless I had my eyes wide open.