"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.