“I don’t care what you say!  We didn’t participate in your program and we’re not paying for this campout!”

I felt my face flush hot at the angry words of the man breaking camp beneath the tall [...]]]>

Image titled "Whitby Abbey: Archway" by Craig M. Booth. To see his Flickr photostream, click on the image.

“I don’t care what you say!  We didn’t participate in your program and we’re not paying for this campout!”

I felt my face flush hot at the angry words of the man breaking camp beneath the tall pine trees.  It was Sunday morning, and we were at the end of the Fall Camporee for our local Boy Scout District.  I was the chairman of the event.  I had worked with several other scout leaders over the past six months to develop a program combining service, a competition that tested map and compass skills, and other fun events.  Up until this confrontation, I had thought that the camporee had been a real success.

Now I was confronted with an angry Scoutmaster who seemed bent on picking a fight with me about the camporee fee.  Out of 16 troops attending, only 2 had decided not to participate in the competition portion of the event.  The other troop had paid their camporee fee ($10 per scout) but then complained to others, behind my back, that they were upset at the high cost, didn’t think it fair for what they received, and they threatened that they wouldn’t pay it next year.  Now, after the event was complete and most of the other troops had already departed, this Scoutmaster decided to make his protest by refusing to pay any fee at all.

I felt caught between a rock and a hard place.  I’m a volunteer trying to do my best, like the vast majority of scout leaders,and  just like the angry man who was yelling at me.  Certain camping fees are required to cover costs of scout property use and insurance, and we both knew it.  I have no authority to waive those fees.  Plus the other troop had grudgingly paid their fee; how would they react if they learned I gave this troop a pass on paying theirs?

All these thoughts, and a host of other defensive reactions flashed through my mind in an instant.  I felt my muscles tense, preparing for a fight.  Then, thankfully, I remembered to take a breath, and in that instant, my forgiveness had room to begin taking root.

Forgiveness has been on my mind a lot lately.  The work that Carol and I have been doing with our Mediator has opened my eyes to how little conscious thought goes into many of my reactions, particularly when I’m stressed or feeling attacked.  I have complained bitterly for years about Carol’s unwillingness to forgive past hurts and mistakes that I’ve made; it has been a difficult and humbling experience to discover just how unforgiving I have been towards her.

Christianity is crystal clear on the issue of forgiveness: we’re all to “turn the other cheek,” and not just once, but as many times as necessary.  In this respect, all the major world religions agree: treat others as you would like to be treated.  We’re all human, therefore we all make mistakes, and consequently we all need to be able to forgive.  In modern times, science has also “discovered” the benefits of forgiveness to our physical and psychological health.  Holding onto anger over past hurts has been linked to high blood pressure, heart disease, and even increased risk for certain cancers.  Studies have shown that patients who actively work to release their long-held negative emotions through forgiveness have a lower risk to long-term medical diseases and are even better able to avoid illnesses like the common cold or flu.

But how exactly do we forgive?  What is the process?  In my experience, we’re frequently encouraged to be forgiving, but we receive precious little actual training in the practice of forgiveness.  I believe that most of us, if asked, would state that we consider ourselves to be forgiving.  However, when we feel unjustly attacked, as I did that Sunday morning, the vast majority of us would feel vindicated in defending ourselves and even fighting back.  I wasn’t being abused or physically threatened, yet my immediate, unconscious reaction was to prepare for fight-or-flight.

Being conscious of my body’s reactions and the emotions they’re communicating is a technique we’ve been practicing in our Mediation sessions.  Likewise, the technique of purposely drawing a breath, which draws my mind out of the past and centers it in the present moment.  That instant of centering created a small space that allowed other possibilities to enter my mind: alternative reasons for the Scoutmaster’s anger, an openness to the idea that he may have a valid point, and new, creative responses to his opposition.  In a word: forgiveness.

As calmly as I could, I said, “It doesn’t really matter to me whether you pay the fee or not.  It’s not like I keep any of the money.”

A look of surprise flashed over the Scoutmaster’s face, but he was still wary of me.  I let the silence stretch between us for a moment, then asked, “But what about your troop’s camping fees?”

He conceded that his troop probably owed the camping fee for their weekend stay, but they hadn’t participated in any of the other events nor received the patches from the event, and they weren’t going to pay for them.

“That’s fine,” I said.  ”I’ll let the District Executive know about our discussion and you can square up with her.”

I left his campsite still feeling agitated over the encounter, but as I reflected on our exchange on the drive home, the open space of that forgiveness continued to grow in my mind.  I realized that this man had avoided me almost the entire weekend.  How long had he been worrying about having an argument with me?  I could imagine the stress of that worry had tainted his entire weekend.  I found myself feeling sorry that he had suffered in that way.

I also found my forgiveness extending to the troop that had complained behind my back.  Perhaps I had intimidated them.  Perhaps I had been too distracted or insensitive to hear their concerns.  Certainly their concerns were just as valid, and I realized that I could influence the District Executive to adjust their fees, too.  In a flash of insight, I realized that making things right with both troops now will help the Fall Camporee to be even more successful next year.

All that space from one little breath, and the forgiveness that it allowed in.

Share Your Forgiveness Methods

I’m continuing my research into forgiveness.  So far in my reading, I’ve come across some fascinating forgiveness methods and concepts, and I plan to share them with you in future posts.  Forgiveness is a huge subject, and I’m aware that I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of this topic so far.  Much of the forgiveness literature I’ve uncovered so far is written for the Clergy or professional therapists.

I’m far more interested in the daily application of forgiveness in our lives.  I invite you to share your thoughts and experiences on forgiveness in the comments below.  How do you practice forgiveness?  Do you have a regular method that you follow?  Can you recommend a good book that helps explain the art of forgiveness?  Can you give an example where forgiveness gave you space to respond in a creative, beneficial way?

There’s nothing like a little adversity to rid us of the illusions and false concepts we’ve built up in our lives.

The challenge of unemployment has been having this effect in my [...]]]>

Image titled "Railway To Nowhere Land" used be permission of KM Cheng, Hong Kong. Click on photo to see KM's full Flickr photostream.

There’s nothing like a little adversity to rid us of the illusions and false concepts we’ve built up in our lives.

The challenge of unemployment has been having this effect in my life.  Many of the “answers” I adopted as truths have evaporated like the morning fog under the harsh light of adversity.  In fact, many of the questions that led me to those “answers” have also been revealed as wrong – they start from false assumptions and consequently lead the mind down blind alleys to dead-end conclusions.

This has been a difficult process for me – all change is – but over time this humbling experience has also become liberating.  Old assumptions and expectations have been cleared away, leaving behind a less burdened space.  The concepts I’ve accepted as “mature” have not held up under the test of experience.  The questions that led to those concepts have similarly needed to be dismissed.

And so, in order to move forward, I’ve found it necessary to return to the more important questions, the one’s that still remain valid: the questions of the child.

At that time, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven?”

He called a little child and had him stand among them.  And he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

– Matthew 18:1-4 (NIV)

Why?

Why is the universe the way it is?  Why does it work the way it does?  Where did it come from, and where is it going?  What is our role and purpose in it?  Why are we here?  In spite of my family’s current financial predicament, these are some of the questions that keep demanding my attention.

I was raised during the ’60’s and ’70’s in small town America, so I learned two diametrically opposed answers to these questions: the theories of science from my public school and the faith of religion from my Christian church.  As a maturing teenager, the concepts of Newton, Einstein, Darwin, and other great scientific minds seemed more plausible than the accounts of Genesis and Exodus offered by Christian orthodoxy.  After all, they were basing teir conclusions on experimental results, and our modern technology was proof that they were correct.

However, as middle-aged man I began to question the cold, harsh scientific explanations and returned to my religious training.  Initially, this may have been for self-assuring reasons – I wanted to believe there was something more following death for myself, my family and friends.  I was hoping for a meaning to our lives.  Fortunately, I quickly experienced numerous occurrences of a larger intelligence working behind the scenes in my life, which I identified as God.  This personal experience led me to the undeniable, but unprovable conclusion that there is a Spirit at work in the universe.

For the past several years I’ve tried to reconcile these two opposing viewpoints into my own personal unified theory of the universe.  This has proved to be one of the greatest false questions in my life.  ultimately, both science and religion are belief systems.  the theories of science are never truly proven.  Teams of scientists devise elaborate experiments to try to disprove a hypothesis; those theories that can’t be dis-proven after repeated attempts are accepted as “true” until they either fail in a future experiment or are replace with a “better” theory.  That scientific theory can’t be directly proven, and is therefore really a belief, is a distinction that’s often forgotten, even by many scientists.

Religion, to its credit, makes no such claims.  You must have faith, we are told,  in order to accept its teachings and benefits.  However, even a casual observation of a typical Sunday service leads me to the conclusion that the accumulated teachings of 2000 years of religious saints, teachers and philosophers has done little to open the spiritual path for the vast majority of seekers.  Religion lacks a means of testing and improvement that is inherent in the scientific method.  Personal experience is usually met with the same sense of distrust from religious seekers as the scientific community.

The Convergence

A man should look for what is, and not what he thinks should be.  – Albert Einstein

The holy grail of scientific inquiry for the past half-century has been the “unified theory,” one grand equation that will account for all four major forces in the study in physics.  One of the biggest sticking points has been quantum mechanics – the study of the sub-atomic universe.  We learned about the protons, neutrons and electrons that make up atoms in grade school.  However, scientists have discovered that the small particles that make up everything in the observable universe don’t behave at all as expected.  They may not even be particles at all, since they exhibit properties of both particles and waves.

According to the Heizenburg Uncertainty Principle, an underlying tenet of quantum mechanics, it’s impossible to know all the variables associated with a particle.  This isn’t a statement about the limits of modern scientific detection methods; it’s a description of the nature of the system that quantum mechanics equations describe.  It is impossible to accurately determine both an electron’s position and velocity.  Only one variable can be determined at a time.  Taken to its limit, the uncertainty principle indicates that an electron of known velocity could be anywhere in the universe.  Or nowhere.  Or even two places at once.

From there, it gets even stranger.  Wes Hopper, who writes the Daily Gratitude Blog, wrote a fascinating article titled “Science, Spirituality and Life After Death” summarizing some of the new scientific findings triggered by the study of quantum mechanics that don’t fit with the current “materialism” theory prevalent in science today.  Go ahead and read it now (by clicking on the link) – I’ll wait.

In her book The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe, Lynne McTaggart also describes the work of Jahn and Nelson at the Princeton University Global Consciousness Project, as well as the work of scientific explorers in fields ranging from biology and medicine to energy and aerospace.  All of the investigators profiled started out firmly rooted in the scientific viewpoint, but then stumbled on experimental results that didn’t fit with current scientific tenets.  Instead of rejecting the findings out of hand, they devised rigorous experiments to further test their findings, often risking reputation and career in the process.  Their test results seem to validate many claims about individual- and group-consciousness, ESP, alternative medicine, and faith-healing which have been traditionally rejected and ignored by the larger scientific community.

We must dare to think “unthinkable” thoughts.  We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world.  We must learn to welcome and not fear the voices of dissent.  – J. William Fulbright

McTaggart draws some amazing conclusions based on the work of these scientists:

• “The communication of the world does not occur in the visible realm of Newton, but in the subatomic world of Werner Heisenburg [and the uncertainty principle].”
• “A substructure underpins the universe that is essentially a recording medium of everything, providing a means of everything to communicate with everything else.”
• “People are indivisible from their environment.  living consciousness is not an isolated entity.  It increases order in the rest of the world.”

She predicts a ‘coming scientific revolution [that will] end dualism in every sense.  Far from destroying God, science for the first time [is] proving His existence – by demonstrating that a higher, collective consciousness [is] out there.  There need no longer be two truths, the truth of science and the truth of religion.  There could be only one unified vision of the world.”

Having personally proven how easy it is to find what I think I should be, I’m now doing my best to maintain an open, inquisitive mind without jumping to conclusions.  Are the seemingly disparate paradigms of science and spirituality starting to converge?  There’s much more to read, study, and explore.  I will continue to update you on my findings, and I invite your input and vigorous debate.

Still, I found it interesting recently that a book I’m reading on meditation and spirituality quoted Albert Einstein, the father of the Theory of Relativity and arguably the world’s most famous scientist:

A human being is part of the whole called by us “universe,” a part limited in time and space.  We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of consciousness.  This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.  Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening the circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.  – Albert Einstein

Welcome to the new home of the Serendipity Journal.

It has been a loooong time since I last posted.  Sorry.

Initially, my posting delay occurred because I was working to set up this new website.  Despite my best research efforts, my first experience into domain names and hosting services had more than a couple of [...]]]>

Welcome to the new home of the Serendipity Journal.

It has been a loooong time since I last posted.  Sorry.

Initially, my posting delay occurred because I was working to set up this new website.  Despite my best research efforts, my first experience into domain names and hosting services had more than a couple of major stumbles along the way.  The process I thought would take no more than two weeks, tops, took closer to two months of frustrating off-and-on-again work.  However, by the end of July I had cleared most of the technical hurdles and migrated the Serendipity Journal to this new website.

It was at that point that real-world issues took center stage in my life.  Here’s the Cliff Notes version: I’m still seeking full-time employment, I’ve moved in with a close friend while my wife and I are going through mediation for our marriage, and, in spite of our stuck relationship, Carol and I worked together to get our two college-age children financially and physically set-up for their first week of classes at Ohio State last week.

But all these excuses aside – and really, that’s all they are – the biggest reason why it has taken so long to publish this post  is my own embarrassment and unreasonable expectations.  As the days stretched into weeks, I vowed to write an excellent post to explain the delay.  I wanted that post to be full of wisdom and insight, and hoped it would somehow make up for the long delay. But nothing I could think to write seemed good enough, and the inspiration I kept hoping for refused to materialize.

The weeks stretched into months.  Each day delayed added further to the burden I had created for myself.

As you’ve no doubt surmised by this point, there won’t be any profound insights served up in today’s post.  Many of the “answers” that I’ve adopted over the past 48 years have failed in the face of the adversity experienced over the past few months.  In fact, I now seem to have many more questions than answers as I progress through life.

And, miraculously, this is a good place to be.

As Deepak Chopra points out in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, freedom lies in the “wisdom of uncertainty”:

“In the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning.  And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe.”

Ultimately, there wasn’t enough wisdom and insight in the world to make up for my posting delay.  Whose forgiveness was I seeking anyway?  In truth, it was my own self-judgement that caused this delay and the guilt I associated with it, nothing more.  It would have been more comfortable for me to serve up a post offering a great life-lesson drawn from my recent experiences, but at this point I’m too close to those experiences to hold any meaningful perspective.

So instead of insight, this post holds possibility.  The questions are there, just waiting to be explored.  And if we seek, we’ve been assured that we will find.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Starting is half done.

Consider this post a start.

My wife Carol has an amazing affinity for animals of all kinds.  Our house is a virtual Noah’s ark of pets, including dogs, cats, birds, fish, and other assorted, furry varmints.  Each pet enjoys Carol’s special blend of care and attention.  She has a natural ability to [...]]]>

My wife Carol has an amazing affinity for animals of all kinds.  Our house is a virtual Noah’s ark of pets, including dogs, cats, birds, fish, and other assorted, furry varmints.  Each pet enjoys Carol’s special blend of care and attention.  She has a natural ability to communicate with animals in a way that leaves me awestruck.

For example, earlier this week, my son Derek and I were in the basement with the windows open when we heard a commotion in the backyard.

“What’s that noise?” Derek asked me.

“I don’t know.  It sounds like a bird fight,” I replied, vaguely aware of Carol rushing out the back screen door as I spoke.

Five minutes later, Carol called to us, “Don’t let any of the cats out.  I just caught Choco about to attack a baby bird that fell out of its nest!”

Sure enough, when I went out back, there was a baby robin clutching a branch in our little Japanese maple tree.  The loud noises earlier had been the baby’s frantic mother calling for help, and Carol had answered.  Over the course of that evening, we watched her cautiously feed her baby, and tracked his progress out of the tree and onto the top of our privacy fence.

“He’ll be fine as long as the cats and dogs don’t get him,” Carol advised me.  “Be careful when you let the dogs out in the morning.”

The next morning, I followed her instructions to the letter, and even searched our yard for our little visitor, finding no sign of him.  Carol had errands to run in town, and I headed for the computer.  But within half an hour, I heard those same, frantic bird calls from the previous day in the backyard.  Vowing not to make the same mistake twice, I hurried out into the backyard.

I circled our fence twice, finding nothing.  I was just about to give up the search when I discovered our cat with the baby robin on our back deck.  He had dragged the baby to our back door and was preparing for the kill.  The baby looked up at me and opened its beak in a silent call for help.  Tiny clumps of feathers scattered about him on the floor boards testified to the terror he had suffered in the past five minutes.

I quickly tossed the cat in the house, then turned back to tend to the wounded bird.  My first thought was to move him back to the relative safety of the fence again, but as I started to reach down to pick him up, a quieter voice that sounded a lot like Carol’s spoke in my mind: If you touch him, his mother will stop taking care of him.

I knew that voice was right.  So, reluctantly, I went back in the house.

He looked so defenseless sitting there by himself, but each time we went out to check on him, we would find his mother hard at work bringing him food to eat.  It wasn’t long before he was moving around the deck thanks to her efforts.  We helped her by letting our dogs out the basement door and blocking the stairs to the deck to protect the baby.

Slowly it dawned on me that baby robin wasn’t defenseless at all.  His Defender had a plan for him all along, and we were all playing our parts in it.

Late that afternoon, Carol called to me, “I haven’t seen the momma bird lately.  Do you see the baby anywhere?”  A thorough search of the back yard confirmed he had gained enough strength to leave.

Good luck to you, little guy.  May all the others you encounter along your path heed the Voice that brings healing and peace to this world.

I worked for Chuck for two years.  He was a good manager, treating everyone with dignity and respect.  He was dedicated, hard working, and pragmatic.  Unfortunately, Chuck was laid-off in [...]]]> I’ve worked for some fine people over the course of my career.  One of the best was my old manager from my past employer, Chuck Reedy.

I worked for Chuck for two years.  He was a good manager, treating everyone with dignity and respect.  He was dedicated, hard working, and pragmatic.  Unfortunately, Chuck was laid-off in November, 2007 due to a company downsizing.

It was only after Chuck was gone that I fully appreciated the quality of his leadership and character.  In the span of one month, I reported to three different managers due to firings for performance.  Chuck had done an excellent job of insulating our team from the craziness of his leaders, never once complaining or blaming them to us.  He was a class act.

I kept tabs on Chuck’s job search through his son, who continues to work at that company.  But as the weeks turned into months and then stretched beyond a year with no full-time employment, I stopped asking about him. I justified myself by reasoning that it was rude to keep asking about such a painful issue – I’d be rubbing salt in an open wound.

Now that I’m unemployed, I see things very differently.  There’s nothing like walking in someone else’s shoes for a while to give you a new perspective.

Recently, I had to phone Chuck to ask if he’d be willing to be a reference for me.  I was nervous calling him – would he be upset that I had done a poor job of staying in contact, that I hadn’t been more supportive? But the warmth in his voice put my worries to rest.  He’s still a class act.

He said that he searched for full-time work for over a year.  Twice he made it as far as the final interview, only to lose out to another candidate or a hiring freeze.  Now Chuck sees this as a blessing.

“I always wanted to have my own business, but never took the time to pursue it.  God opened that door for me, but I spent a lot of time looking at the door He had closed.”

Now Chuck is running his own contracting / handyman service.  He has several remodeling and building projects in the works.  The same qualities he demonstrated as a manager serve him well in his new business.  The work is hard, but he’s happy and fulfilled, and wakes each morning with a new sense of purpose.

Chuck told a story of a recent church study group meeting where the leader asked everyone to share what they’re thankful for from the past year.  “I’m grateful that God led me to where I belong,” Chuck said.  “I never realized I could be this happy.”

When I was laid-off in February, I didn’t anticipate how busy I would be in unemployment.  In the last two weeks, I spent a day’s time applying for food stamps and almost two days reapplying for financial [...]]]> I missed last week’s post.  I’m in danger of missing this week’s as well.  There’s so much to do…

When I was laid-off in February, I didn’t anticipate how busy I would be in unemployment.  In the last two weeks, I spent a day’s time applying for food stamps and almost two days reapplying for financial aid for our two college-aged children.  And then there’s the job search, which has settled into a frustrating daily effort.

I’m working harder now than I have in years, but with very little to show for my efforts so far.  In fact, this is the answer to the question I posed in the last post:

I’m not unemployed, I’m under-compensated.

Compensation can be corrected – that’s the good news.

Unfortunately, I can’t correct it all by myself.  That’s the crux of my challenge; my problem, my opportunity to grow.

I’ve enjoyed the extra time I’ve had at home with my family over the past two months.  Our relationships are growing stronger, and the flexibility in my schedule is a real benefit.  It’s exciting to envision all the new career paths available to me with my friends and family.  These have been mountain-top experiences.

But I still find it daunting to reach out to “weak” network connections.  When exploring potential leads not perfectly in alignment with my previous career tract, I drag my feelings of lack and self-doubt with me into the conversations.  I stack the deck against myself before I even pick up the phone.  The truth be told, sometimes I lose faith in myself and don’t even make the call, unwilling to risk possible rejection.  A valley like that can feel very deep indeed.

I’m trapped between two visions of competing worlds.  In one, we’re all connected at a deep level, sharing one spirit, brothers and sisters working together in peace and strength.  Success comes through our connections, providing an abundance that is mutually shared and beneficial.

The other world is a far darker place, dog-eat-dog, where our success comes at the expense of others.  Those others I see as my competitors at best, my enemies in my weaker moments.  I fear they hold a power over me that keeps me from fulfilling my purpose on this earth.

These two worlds are mutually exclusive.  They cannot both exist.  One is true, the other is false.  Yet I’ve experienced both over my lifetime.  And I continue to vacillate between the two, with more and more frequency.

A loving person lives in a loving world.  A hostile person lives in a hostile world.  Everyone you meet is your mirror.  — Ken Keyes Jr.

The time has now come to choose.  I made a plan in share group today with my friend Jim.  Starting today, I plan to reach out each day to at least one person that challenges my comfort.  In this way, I will test whether I can perceive the Savior that faith tells me is in each one of us. I share this plan with you so that you can hold me accountable.

May we all behold the light that others hold out for us.

Earlier this week, I heard a news report stating the last time the national unemployment rate was this bad was back in the early 1980’s.  I graduated from college in 1983, at the height of the Reagan recession.  I had no [...]]]>

"Graduation Cake Guy" image by CarbonNYC. Click image to see his entire photostream.

Earlier this week, I heard a news report stating the last time the national unemployment rate was this bad was back in the early 1980’s.  I graduated from college in 1983, at the height of the Reagan recession.  I had no interest in pursuing a graduate degree, and there were very few recruiters who visited our campus that year.  Consequently, I found myself at the end of my senior year saying goodbye to my friends and heading back to my parent’s home with no job prospects and no idea what to do next.

My time back home only lasted about a week before my mother was counseling me, “Douglas, I love you, but there’s nothing here for you anymore.  You need to go back to Alfred.  Get an apartment.  Get a part-time job.  Take some art course if you’d like, but keep in contact with your profession there.”

And that’s just what I did.

The Fifth Year of College

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about that extra year I spent at Alfred University.  I supported myself working at the sub shop, selling some short-run custom pottery pieces, and working as a lab assistant.  I even did some substitute teaching in my old high school during the Christmas break – the horror.

When I graduated from high school, I had a dual college prep / art major.  I decided to pursue a degree in engineering for the financial security that career offered.  You can always be a full-time engineer and a part-time artist, I figured, but it doesn’t work so well the other way around. The price of that promised security was four solid years of math, science, and technical course work that left me feeling empty in spite of my academic success.

I made it through my college years by taking every art option I could.  I even discovered a model design and mold making elective that could be counted for either art or engineering credit.  Wally Higgins, the instructor of that industrial pottery arts course, didn’t fit comfortably into either school.  His class was considered too rigid by the artists, too low-tech by the engineers.  I was drawn to him as a kindred spirit.  I even took my senior thesis under him.

When I returned for my fifth year, Wally accepted me as a lab assistant, and helped me get into a number of upper level art courses most engineering students couldn’t access.  I took advanced drawing, neon, sculpture, and glass courses.  Here at last was my opportunity to unleash my creativity.  I should have been in heaven.

Instead, I was miserable.  I judged myself a failure.  All my college friends were either working or enrolled in graduate school.  Why didn’t I work harder to find a job?  Why didn’t I apply for grad school? I allowed myself no satisfaction in my art work.  I’m an engineer, I thought.  I don’t belong in these classes.

The only accomplishments I valued were the dozens of job applications I generated over the long winter months.  But even that work was frustrating: I rarely received acknowledgement the letters had been received.  It was seven months before I got my first job interview.

The tide finally broke my way in May of 1984.  I landed two job offers, and left with great relief for my first job choice in Syracuse, happy to have the long year at Alfred finally behind me.

It took several years before I realized just how badly I had missed the opportunities of that fifth year.  I was supporting myself and doing exactly what I wanted to be doing, but my self-judgements turned a potential heaven into a hell.  No one considered me a failure but me, still that was all it took.  I cut myself off from the support and friendship that was mine for the asking.

I looked past all I had, and focused on what I felt I lacked.  I reaped the bitter harvest that I sowed.

All This Has Happened Before…

And now, twenty-five years later, I’ve been tempted to fall back into the same trap again.

I learned Friday from the hiring manager for the job I wrote about in the last post that his company just went through a down-sizing earlier that week.  They’re filling that position with an internal candidate from another division to avoid one more lay-off.

He was very kind to call me, and I felt well-treated through the whole experience, but as the weekend dragged on the stormy weather outside mirrored my internal frame of mind.  Now what do I do? I brooded.  There are other applications out, but no real prospects on the horizon.

Thankfully, the quote in my planner Monday morning helped me start to turn my thinking around:

I have learned to live each day as it comes, and not to borrow trouble by dreading tomorrow.  It is dark menace of the future that makes cowards of us. — Dorothy Dix

When I stopped and took stock of all we have, instead of what I lack, I couldn’t help but feel deep gratitude, and peace, and hope.

I enjoy the support of my family and we’ve grown closer over the past month than ever before.  We’re making ends meet financially with the full family’s cooperation and a little assistance from the government.  This experience has also helped me to see how many good friends I have, far more than I would have guessed before the lay-off.

For the first time since I took that first job in Syracuse, the possibilities for my career are wide open.  I limited myself during that fifth year at Alfred by thinking of myself as an unemployed engineer.  In fact, I further limited myself by thinking of that time as my fifth year of college instead of as the first year in my career.

And the world I experienced mirrored the internal thoughts I held closest to my heart.

So, some changes are in order.  This will be the last post titled “Stories From Unemployment.”  I’m excited for what the future holds, and unwilling to carry the “unemployed” label anymore.  Any suggestions you have for new titles for this series would be appreciated, but please don’t suggest the dreaded “seeking opportunities elsewhere.”

Where will my career go – writing, consulting, free lancing, teaching, full-time employment, or some blend of each?  I don’t honestly know at this point.  I’m on a journey of discovery. But I’ll find the answer with the help of my friends and our extended network.  These relationships will show me the way.  They’re the most important asset I have on this journey.

Ultimately, our relationships are all we truly have, or need.

In Praise of Networking

Exactly one month to the day now since I was laid-off.  I had my first phone interview last week regarding a great local job with a Fortune 500 company.  The position looks like [...]]]> This post is dedicated to my friend David.  I hope you realize how many friends you have in your “network.”

In Praise of Networking

Exactly one month to the day now since I was laid-off.  I had my first phone interview last week regarding a great local job with a Fortune 500 company.  The position looks like it would be a natural career progression for me.  I’ve been very careful not to let myself get my hopes up, but I can’t help being honest here:

I would love this job, I would rock in that position, and it would exceed all my job search goals: a growing company in emerging technology with better pay and benefits, and they’re located a mile closer to my house.

If I do end up getting this job, it will be because of networking.  I have to admit, I’ve never been comfortable with the term “networking” before.  I always viewed it in negative terms; I thought of it as pushing myself on others to get what I wanted, like a sleazy used car salesman.  I don’t know anyone important and I’m not good at networking anyway, I thought.

But the experiences of the past month have shown me just how wrong I’ve been concerning networking.  It’s not using others to get what you want, it’s really a two-way street.  Neighbors helping neighbors.  Friends indeed helping each other out.

The phone-interview job is a good case in point.  I wouldn’t have even considered applying for it, having been disappointed by the same company on three different occasions in the past four years.  But two friends separately encouraged me to check out the company’s job board, and this position had been posted just two days prior to my search.

One friend made some inquires and learned who the hiring manager is.  She convinced a former colleague to put in a good word for me and to give the manager my resume.  Two other friends that work for the company took my resume to the site HR group.  They even gave me advice on everything from salary ranges to places to research the job’s and company’s details.  Without their help, I never would have gotten the phone interview.

I realize now that I was too proud, and too weak, to allow others to help me.  I can do it on my own, was my unconscious motto.  I didn’t believe others would be willing to help me.  I cut myself off from experiencing true friendship.  I don’t deserve their kindness, was my underlying fear.

But as my network of friends has reached out on my behalf, something miraculous is happening: we’re all being blessed in more ways than we could have imagined.  It’s the pay-it-forward principle – you always receive more than you can give away.  They’re blessed for being a blessing.

Even me, in my current “weakened” position, am finding that I have a great deal to offer.  And as I share what I have, my optimism, my gratitude, and my faith, it’s returned to me a hundred times over.  I can’t begin to express how wonderful the lessons of this past month have been.  My real priorities have become clear.  I will never fear networking with my friends again, nor doubt how many friends we truly have in this big, wide world.

One final “networking” story:

We received an anonymous card in the mail postmarked “Zanesville, OH.”  It contained an inspirational message and $45 in cash.  It was signed, “Praying our blessing forward!  God Bless!”

Thank you my friends.  You gave me a chance to be a generous father to my children, who each had a need for part of that money.  I shared your gift with them.  It was exactly what they needed, and exactly what I needed too.

God bless you, too.

It’s now a little over three weeks since the layoff.  The past week has been very busy and challenging, but also extremely rewarding.  One of the things this experience has taught me is that the rest of your [...]]]>

Image titled "Grand Canyon backpack" by Kevindooley. Click on image to see more of his work.

It’s now a little over three weeks since the layoff.  The past week has been very busy and challenging, but also extremely rewarding.  One of the things this experience has taught me is that the rest of your life doesn’t end just because you lose your job.

For instance, our boy scout troop has a backpacking hike planned for tomorrow.  The boys plan to hike a few miles with full packs to prepare for a longer hike in May.  I’ll be sharing the following advice with them before we set out.  This “Scoutmaster’s Minute” obviously has broader applications to searching for a new job, or any other challenge that life may give you.

A Scoutmaster’s Minute On Hiking

As you set out on this hike, you have a choice to make: where are you going to focus your attention?

The reason why you hike is to reach a desired destination.  That’s the goal.  Having a goal is a good thing.  It gives you a direction and a purpose.  Reaching a goal, especially a challenging goal, is rewarding.  When we reach our goal this afternoon, what do you think will be our rewards?

With so many obvious rewards, it’s easy to see why so many people focus their attention on the goal.

But consider this: what is a hike?  A hike is actually a series of individual steps taken one after the other over time until the desired goal is achieved.  What many people fail to recognize is each one of those steps offers its own special reward, if you allow it.

This is something you can’t be taught from a book or from someone else telling you about it.  You have to experience it for yourself to understand.

Each step is an opportunity.  No two steps are exactly the same.  Each step is necessary to reach the goal.  And each step will reward you in its own unique way if you’re paying attention.

That’s the beauty and the challenge of hiking: you can focus on the goal and receive your reward at the end, or you can focus on each step, receiving each individual reward along the way, and also attain the extra reward of the goal as an extra benefit.  The choice is yours.

So where will you focus your attention?

It’s now two weeks since the layoff.  What a wild ride.  Each minute is an adventure.

Following is a short story from earlier this week.  I’m going to do my best to share more of these stories as they [...]]]>

You cannot teach a man anything.  You can only help him find it within himself.  — Galileo Galilei

It’s now two weeks since the layoff.  What a wild ride.  Each minute is an adventure.

Following is a short story from earlier this week.  I’m going to do my best to share more of these stories as they occur, if for no other reason than I to help me remember.  Hopefully you’ll find these stories as meaningful as me.

The Outplacement Seminar

Monday I was scheduled to start a two-day seminar with an outplacement consulting group as the final part of my severance package.  I had signed up for the first class available, hopeful it would help me shift my job search into high gear.  However, I was a little disappointed to learn the seminar was being moved from the consulting firm’s Columbus office to a site owned by my former employer.

Great! I thought.  Saving money again.  They probably won’t even have coffee available.

I woke up crabby on Monday morning, and even my journaling did nothing to improve my mood.  When the rest of the family woke up later that morning, my sour mood erupted into a full-blown meltdown – my first since the layoff.  I barked at the boys, then I barked at my wife.  I even barked at the dogs who barked back at me.

I retreated back to my office in the cellar.  What in the world just happened?

Slowly, over the course of the rest of the day, I began to understand: I was worried that the seminar would be a total waste of time, which is in short supply right now.  How good could it be if my old company was supplying it?

I’m angry at my old company.

Deep down in a secret compartment of my mind I’ve been stuffing all the resentment, anger, and fear collected over the past several years of my career.  I thought I was past it all when I was let go, but I was wrong.

And my family suffered for my mistake.

Now that I’m aware, I’m doing my best to bring those suppressed feelings into the light to release them.  It’s a bit like peeling an onion, each layer reveals a new, deeper level of grievance.  But it’s worthwhile work, perhaps the best that I’ve ever done.

Is this why I had to leave under these difficult circumstances – to make me stop and pay attention to all the baggage weighing me down? I wondered as I signed in for the seminar.

As it turns out, the seminar was extremely helpful and the instructor excellent.  He challenged us with his quiet confidence to pursue our careers with passion, to answer our callings.  Times may be tough, and we’ll all have to work hard at our search each day, but opportunities are still plentiful.

Our instructor, a retired Air Force Colonel of 30 years, was truly inspiring and supportive.  He commanded our attention for two straight days, faltering just once, when he noticed there weren’t any amenities in the meeting room.  “We usually offer coffee and snacks at our site,” he said.  “They don’t even have water in this room.”

It sucks to always be right, I thought.

Ah well, one more layer to peel.