In the movie Up in the Air, George Clooney plays a man whose job consists of firing people. Corporations contract with him to deliver the bad news to their casualties. And he has mastered his art, describing his work to an upstart apprentice in spiritual terms: something akin to ferrying the souls of the newly unemployed to a place where they can begin to face the reality of their situation.
In one termination interview, he brings a desperate man to the discovery that the loss of his job means that he can pursue the culinary career he had long ago sacrificed in the name of safety and dependability. “Your children don’t respect you for paying the bills. What they respect is people who follow their dreams.” This man’s change of heart happens in about three minutes onscreen. Not so realistic, maybe. And yet the essential experience, given enough time, is believable enough.
Losing a job can be devastating, especially in a down economy. A few are laid off one day and find new jobs the next, but others–perhaps you–become unemployed for months and months. You might feel crushed, disconnected. More than your income has collapsed; so too, in some cases, has your identity. The employment crisis of “What am I to do?” becomes a spiritual crisis of “Who am I?” Loss of your job can expose an even greater void.
The loss of your job has meaning for you. That meaning can be influenced by your stage of life, whether it falls in your early, confidence-building years; or it occurs in your productive and often driven middle phase, or it coincides with your mid-life self-assessment; or it lands late in your career, when you are questioning your ability or desire to keep pace with changing circumstances. And in the end, the meaning you discover is, of course, highly individual.
Understanding the meaning of this transition is part necessity and part opportunity. In ordinary circumstances, people tend to count on the requirements of the day to guide them–through the day, the week, from week to week, and so on. But this is different. Without a job, a person might need a compass, a way of understanding what is ultimately important, because the field is so desolate, the usual landmarks gone.
Many a man who has been living to work vows that, next time, he will work to live. Many a woman who has allowed the job to define success realigns her work with her own most deeply held values. “What am I to do?” is both an employment question and a spiritual one. And the compass you consult to guide your response is critical.
Under the pressure of finding work, you might consider it a luxury to spend time clarifying the compass by which you establish your direction in life. Fair enough. It is not a requirement for everyone faced with unemployment. But should you find the loss debilitating or should the workless phase prove protracted through no choice of your own, a deep consideration of your compass, your guiding values and objectives, can be the most healing and productive step you can take.