Art of Progress

"The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order."

- Alfred North Whitehead

A few weeks before my job was eliminated along with about 30 others by my last employer in November 2011, I wrote an article in the inaugural issue of the staff newsletter about personal resilience in adapting to change. The organization had undertaken a 'change initiative' several months earlier, preparing staff for a new way of working, collaborating and defining the organization. And, in hindsight, perhaps preparing some of us for a new way of life NOT working there.

I discovered that my own ability to adapt to change has been sorely challenged, but like a muscle that's been idle, my resilience has grown stronger through this experience of having my safety net pulled out from under me.

My eyes have opened to a new way of looking at life, experiencing life, and defining who I am as a person, a parent, an employee and a member of community. I sensed the need to make some changes for over a year before I was given my walking papers. I did not act on it in my own timing, so the universe gave me a shove out the door; ready or not, here comes change.

An article in the Washington Post recently features one of my former colleagues who was laid off from her position two years ago, before this recent and larger downsizing.  Kathy Westra's experience is an example of what many Americans have discovered over the past 15 years or so--the jobs may not be there as we traditionally define them, but the work still is. Click here to read the article

I keep coming back to a book I mentioned in my last post about the shifting nature of work as we know it in America, about the necessity to see ourselves and our skills as part of a marketplace, and what we are continually marketing is ourselves, You & Co., as William Bridges puts it in JobShift: How to Prosper in a Workplace Without Jobs. Even when when we are employed as a regular employee, we must look to what the needs are, not just the job description for which we were hired.

I can read this, and know it, and yet still find myself trying to fit myself and my job search into the traditional way of looking at WORK and JOB that those of us over the age of, say 20, were raised on. 

How we as a nation make structural and economic changes to fit this new way of working may take many years to figure out and accomplish. One of the first things I see that needs to happen, and is finally underway to some extent, is to stop tying healthcare benefits to employment. Oh, I think it's great if employers still offer it, nothing wrong with that from my point of view--however, we need to find new ways for freelancers, consultants and other people doing the work that employees of companies previously did to get group rates for affordable health insurance, life insurance, etc. But that's probably a topic for another post.

My takeaways for today are:

• Resilience can be developed. I don't have to like change to accept change.
• The stages of confronting change are much like the stages of grief (denial, blame, anger, depression, acceptance), and it's okay to wallow in the negative for a short period of time.
•  I am not alone, and the feelings of remorse, self blame, and being boxed in about my options and my abilities is a normal part of the process, but not necessarily the TRUTH. (Just cause I think it, doesn't mean it's true.)
• Dream! Allow myself to explore new ideas, new places, new careers. Allow myself to dream, do a little research, talk to people in a different career or industry that interests me. Sometimes I cut off an idea or interest too soon because my mind comes up with all the reasons I CAN'T do it. It's okay to explore options, and live in the grey for awhile. Trust that I have skills, my experience is valuable, and be creative about how and where they might be useful in the future.
• Taking action to take care of my family and myself on a daily/weekly basis is crucial-- emotionally, physically, psychologically and financially. Exercise, play with the daughter, clean the house, get dressed! Look for work, research, network. As for that stack of books from the library about job searching, careers, how to set up a social network campaign, how to write grants, etc., set them aside after 9 or 10 pm--that's the time to get comfortable in bed and escape with a novel. All that information and those To Do Lists will be there in the morning. (Of course, I'm a morning-person--if you are a night person, you might reverse that.)
• Get out of self! Volunteer in my daughter's classroom and at church. There are needs out there, and I need to be useful. Yes, looking for work is a full time job in itself. But I have to take time to help others and not get too caught up in my head and my situation.
• Be able to admit where my shortcomings might be--where do my skills and experience end, my expectations and the needs of the marketplace begin? Be willing and able to face the gap, and brainstorm some ideas to fill in the gaps.(Goes back to DREAM! but with a good self assessment).

Life may or may not look as I think it should a year from now. There are many who have suffered terribly in the economic crisis the past few years, and have had to radically alter their ideas about what a successful life looks like.

But no matter our circumstances, we must find a way to find meaning in our lives, and meaning can never come from our bank accounts or our job titles. Sometimes it takes hard times to sort through our values.

A friend of mine has traveled widely, and told me of visiting some extremely impoverished countries, and finding some incredibly happy and generous people, in spite of their poverty. It does not make poverty acceptable, but it also illustrates that money is not the key to happiness, and that if we tie our well being to our pocketbooks or our expectations of what we need in life to be okay, we can sometimes miss out.

I see a resilience of the human spirit that I admire in people who live through far more traumatic experiences than I am going through, and I pray to show the same courage and adaptability.

It's easy when facing a personal crisis of any kind to forget that the true purpose in life is NOT to serve self, but to contribute to the well being of others. That to me is true progress.