Hope Is Missing, But Not All Is Lost

Well…It’s been a long run, but…

I’m back to square one.

Yes, it’s been a more active year job search wise than last year thus far, but nothing has stuck.  The phone is ringing, emails are being exchanged and meetings are aplenty, but one resounding and eerily common thread has been in the forefront:

More empty promises.  More rejection.  More rollercoaster rides that end at the bottom forcing me to find my own way back to the starting platform.  More agonizing over what to do next.  More of nothing.  I don’t want anymore.

Can we say that hope is missing, but not lost?  We can indeed, but that begs the question, “If we can’t find hope, reside in the comfort that we are determined and capable enough to find it, then we have an even bigger question of where is it?”  When is something truly lost?  Unless somebody physically threw it out, it has to be somewhere, right?  If our hope is to find a job, and if we give up that hope, it will be lost.  Forever.  We undoubtedly know it has not been trashed.  Yes, our hopes have been dumped on, but hope has not been tossed in the dumpster.  Only we can do that; let’s not go there.

I recently received a comment on one of my articles. The individual quoted his dad as saying, “Tough times don’t last; tough people do.”  These are golden words by which to live.  I couldn’t have said it better, nor could I have taken the credit for such wisdom.  After doing some modern day research which would have taken hours of painstaking detail to perform years ago, after 30 seconds just now, I was able to ascertain that Mr. Gregory Peck originated that quote.  If we say these words everyday, than we can stay tough, maintain hope and keep our dreams alive.  If we let hope fade, then we have given in and all will be lost, sadly.  I would like to thank the reader for bringing his experiences to my attention and enlightening us all with his father’s way of thinking.  It is all in the attitude.  They say for each no, we get closer and closer to the yes. I’m waiting – we’re all waiting.  Still.

We drive. Our cars approach empty.  We fuel our cars, and yet we continue to hover over empty.  It’s almost like a habit we never think about.  We fill up and just go only to have to fill up again with only one fleeting, yet stabbing thought: I just did this, but now I’m paying more for the same privilege.  So we ponder the thought, why bother?  If all we do is just drive, go along our merry way only to run out of gas, why bother?  Well, to properly answer this we need to see where all this driving has taken us.  Has this driving been productive?  At the end of the day, can we say all the driving, aggravation and constant annoyances have all been worth it?  Do we take the time to evaluate and see where we’ve been to make it worth the effort?

I hope…just some fuel for thought.

In order to bring about and cultivate hope, we need to plant something out there to give us hope.  As long as we try, we can hope that what we do will succeed and flourish.  But we need to keep refining and watering our tools and skills; even the best artists in the world continue to train to keep up with the latest in their craft.  Practice does make perfect, but to maintain perfection one must continue practicing.

So in the end, I was right; I was either going to get both jobs, or not.  Sometimes being right isn’t good.  It’s easy at this point to give up hope; what I suggest is to practice hope and to stay tough.

“You have to dream, you have to have a vision, and you have to set a goal for yourself that might even scare you a little because sometimes that seems far beyond your reach. Then I think you have to develop a kind of resistance to rejection, and to the disappointments that are sure to come your way.”

~ Gregory Peck

As Always, Thanks For Surfing My Wave!

Why Just Look For A Job? Create One!™

TheUnemployMENTOR – email@theunemploymentor.com