It is good and it is bad. The good news is that after seven years, I have completed my doctorate. The bad news is that I have to find other meaningful things to occupy myself with. The panic and angst of the current world situation is just waiting to take over.
November has set in with its shorter days and colder temperatures. The green leaves of the warm days have turned their colors and have fallen from the branches that once held them and they are on their way to landfills. The early dusk gives the depressing signal to burrow in and hibernate and have few expectations for the winter. Some people develop the mood disorder, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) as a result of the shorter days.
The depressing feelings have intensified with the global changes, national changes, city changes, and the changes close to me.
Barack Obama campaigned on change. He is about change. He will change things. He is already signaling what he is going to change. He is planning on closing Camp Gitmo allowing all of those one-track terrorists onto American soil for their trials. He is planning on issuing executive orders reversing much of what “W” did in terms of moral issues such as stem-cell research. He is going to push his agenda early and fast. Some of the democrat types around me did not expect this kind of stuff when they voted for him, and I sense some worry on their part.
Of course the global economy is regressing. People are losing their jobs all over the world both near and far.
The oligopoly of the American “big three” auto makers are wanting to get a piece of the federal bailout. It feels close to me given that I have a friend who works at one of the Ford plants here in Louisville. He will only work two weeks between now and February 2009 and receive unemployment the rest of the time.
My job site been very chaotic over the past two weeks while I was finishing the ton of dissertation revisions. The interim vice president has been making so many changes and my program director has been overwhelmed, and she has let the other supervisor make inappropriate decisions. There has been retrenchment where programs have been closing down. One of my departments is moving into a smaller space. It has felt even more scary.
I am still trying to decide how to feel about the fact that the job I had interviewed for is empty again. Even though I was told I did not make the semi-final cut, it is two months later, and the job listing is open again and nothing else has been said to me. What happened?
Graduating next month only makes me wonder whether I have a future at my current organization? It makes me wonder if I am going to have job-lock for the duration of the recession? I will be a Ph.D. Working on the line making less than other Ph.D's. Job-lock was a term used about 10 years ago referring to those people who hated their jobs but could not leave the jobs because of the pay, their debts, and the benefits they were getting at the time.
Now that I have spelled out all this depressing doom and gloom, the challenge is to cope.
I think that it is first okay to say that it is too much pressure to believe that you should feel fantastic. None of the cognitive behavioral techniques are magic. Nor do they always make you feel great. They are about rational thinking and not letting your imagination carry you into the self-made abyss where you are torturing yourself with the worst-case scenarios.
The worst
Those who constantly prepare for the worst, continue to live in the worst. They make themselves live in a guarded state that only creates physical and emotional stress.
Preparing for the worst reminds one of how much control you do not have. Preparing for the worst usually leads to a feeling of being overwhelmed because of all the possibilities for failure. One is just too vulnerable and ironically, preparing for the worst only reminds you of your vulnerabilities.
Regardless, one normally feels vulnerable in times like these, and yes one feels small. I felt very small and puny in the recession of 1991. However, no one really knew it because I did not tell others about it. No one knows what the other feels unless someone asks or tells. (If it would help you . . . You can tell me if you feel small—just make a comment on this entry.)
As part of feeling small, it is very difficult not to live in the worst, given that most of the news media, and talk radio continue to talk about all that is bad. The easy answer is to stop listening to the news, but this is really not practical.
Now, I think that I would get into a fight of rhetoric with some columnist or editor or other pundit about whether or not the media is really doing a service to the general public to continue to repeat all the bad stuff. The news media with its intensification effect asks its questions on a day to day basis what is news worthy? We just are not going to get away from bad news.
I go back to the premise that is is going to have to be normal and acceptable to feel bad. That is what people do in this time. We feel bad. We are going to feel bad. We are going to feel bad for sometime until we start to hear that companies are hiring again and the economy is recovering.
The good news is that the economy will get better again—recessions surprisingly last for relatively short periods of time. Yes, some people will still lose jobs and houses and will probably have to file bankruptcy, but it will be a small portion of the nation.
Where I live, they are expecting 8 percent unemployment next year. What that means is that 92 percent will retain their jobs and most will be working as normal. Will I be one of the 92 percent? I hope so, but nothing is guaranteed.
My basic game plan
While nothing is guaranteed, I am forming a basic plan of coping to feel not so small. This coping plan is one that seeks balance, fulfillment and satisfaction.
The heart of this plan is to make a new list of personal goals. These goals have nothing to do with the economy and paying off my debts (although I will have a second list for financial purposes).
These goals are going to be things that I want to achieve. For example, I am going to remove the old tile from the work room in my garage. I am also going to scan all my papers from my doctoral program and store them on CD ROM and shred the papers. I am going to reduce all my other papers to CD ROM. My overall goal is to de-clutter my life. My list is not complete, but I think it will help me not think too much about the news.
I also plan to have family game nights now that I am available. We had a most interesting game of Dominoes Friday night. Now that the doctoral program is practically over I want to keep doing the family game nights.
Overall, I figure that the more one commits to a game plan that occupies them in a very intense and involved way, the less worse one will feel.
Everyone will have to figure out what to do for themselves. Times like these have possibilities. They do not only have to be about fretting and dwelling and obsessing.
No comments:
Post a Comment