"Much can be accomplished by not doing. -- Thomas Moore

I'm re-reading Thomas Moore's book, Care of the Soul. These days, in almost everything I read, I find application to joblessness and one's search for meaning, and this book is no exception.

Moore quotes the Tao Te Ching, "He helps the ten thousand things find their own nature, but refrains from action." This is the kind of advice I try to give my colleagues and clients who are desperately searching for a place in the work world, and, I think ultimately, in their own world.

I think our best course of action is to do nothing except observe ourselves for a while. How are we taking this job loss? What behaviors do we notice in ourselves? Do we seem "different" now that we don't head off somewhere in the day?

Much can be learned from observation--let's take a few minutes a day to observe and reflect on our "10,000 things" that we find in our own nature.

"Not known, because not looked for." T.S. Eliot, "Four Quartets"

I hear people lamenting the fact that they haven’t found their calling yet. Perhaps it’s because they haven’t done the hard work of listening yet. Facing the silence, or more likely, the cacophony going on in our heads can be a little scary. Not many of us take time to be still and listen to what’s really going on in our heads and our hearts.

So, how do we start the search for our “calling”? I think the act of writing down one’s thoughts and feelings gives substance to our thoughts. When things are spelled out in black and white or blue ink, literally, something happens in that act of converting our thoughts to actually physical words on the paper or bits on a computer screen. Somehow they’re given legitimacy—even though they’re the same words we thought just a moment ago. The same can be said with words that are spoken aloud. It’s one thing to think thoughts, another to enunciate them.

My suggestion, one that has worked for me, is to start journaling daily, whether it’s in a notebook or a decorative journal or on your computer, it doesn’t really matter. Try it for a month and see where your thoughts take you.

Life's Rhythm

This afternoon I was cleaning out my hard copy mail and found a small publication published by Renovare called Explorations. The theme of this issue was Rhythms of Life. The author, Christopher S. Webb, talks about how we are creatures of habit. From the time we are small most of us find ourselves craving the familiar and the regular. How many times are we thrown off our game because we're not in our regular seat at a staff meeting or are in the "wrong" pew at church because a visitor took "our spot". How funny we humans are!

I think being creatures of habit makes losing our jobs so difficult. I've been laid off three times and each time I've had to find a new rhythm. Though unemployed and unencumbered by anyone else's schedule, I would establish a new routine pretty quickly. Get up at 7 am (no longer 7 pm for my graveyard shift job), shower (that was the same!), stop for my coffee (at a new place, but only new until it became part of my new "routine"), drive to the outsourcing office, "work", stop for lunch, then head home for a walk. With each new day, this new route became more and more my routine, until the next change came along and I had to readjust again.

What rhythms does your life follow? Is it an easy rhythm? If it were disrupted, could you establish a new way of living? How much time would it take you to adapt? I'm an easy adapter, but maybe for you you need more time to settle in and get comfortable. Something to think about with all that time you have on your hands ... don't let it go to waste.

Tonight I'm writing the inaugural edition of my newsletter, Maven Matters. I'm going to focus on the concept of FOCUS. People seem so distracted today, whether it's the economy or bad news all around, people forget to focus on the things that really make a positive difference in their lives--relationships, helping one another, being kind, and being grateful. Everything else is just stuff. Yes, we need to deal with the stuff, but let's put first things first.

So, for everyone who signs up for my newsletter, I'm going to send them a timer (while supplies last). I suggest you set it for 10 minutes and then focus on helping someone, writing down what you're thankful for, pray, meditate, pet the dog, talk to someone you love. And if you feel like it, let me know how it went.