Choose abundance

May 6, 2009

Could the lesson of this journey be to keep your ego under control?

I had my “unemployment seminar” today in a storefront in Transitown Plaza along a busy strip of businesses. It was 45 minutes of bullshit, and the hostess basically said, “We can’t help you find a job. Do it yourself, but we’ll sit around, sip coffee and offer you some lame advice. There are so many people unemployed that we can’t find squat for anyone.”

Why bother looking for jobs, was the message, when there are none out there other than pooper scooper and hamburger helper?

OK, I can buy that. Thanks Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. The residue of your squalid years at the helm of state are is coating everything in slime. But what the heck? I didn’t have to voluntarily resign my job – I chose to in the hopes of finding a more fulfilling life. I jumped into this of my own free will. We’ll see what happens.

Anyway, my fellow unemployed seminar-takers turned out to be mostly men – probably a 3 to 1 ratio -- and they ran the gamut in ages from 21 to 60 and from laborer to accountant, it seems.

What a strange turn of events in my life. Living the life of humility. Isn’t that what Jesus did? Only he didn’t get $382 a week (after taxes) plunked into his bank account for doing gardening, vacuuming the house and sending out resumes all morning on the Internet. Just think, only four more days till school begins.

After the scintillating “unemployment surrender seminar,” I made my way to the shopping arenas. At first, I hesitated to buy food for the birds, flowers for the garden and a trellis for our clematis (which we call chlamydia). Then I thought: You know what? I choose to think in terms of abundance, rather than scarcity. Live for today, feed the birds, your appetite and your soul and you will be provided for in a year’s time. I had a real feeling that blue skies are ahead, that there is a reason why I took this big gamble.

If nothing else, it taught me to rein in the ego.