Dealing with unemployment - anyone else?

[Zen]

But it CAN be done. I say go for it. You'll never have a better opportunity.

Would you rather regret the things you did do or the things you didn't do?
life is short.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Would you rather regret the things you did do or the things you didn't do?
life is short.

It depends of what you did and didn't do.
As for me, I feel far worse when regretting some of the things the things i've done, than anything I haven't done. And life has not been short at all. Just saying for myself.

[shootingstar]

There's still a long ride ahead, and some of us are halfway up the mountain (yea!!!!) in years.

I just want to still enjoy its moments, become/remain strong for inclement weather at times, thank those who love me and are cheering me on, be humble enough if I'm tired I will get off bike and walk abit before climbing back on, make some new friends, help a few along the way, learn more and more, laugh before I sleep forever.

[crazycanuck]

IvonaDestroi, I want to suggest a book for your reading pleasure.

Ferrell, J, 2001. Tearing Down The Streets:Adventures in Urban Anarchy.

This response may going over the line & understand mods it perhaps should be messaged to Ivona instead?

I do want to ask you a few things in regards to selling out. Do you think Tooker Gomberg did that? What about Peter Garrett? How do you not sell out & still maintain radical thoughts? Peter Garrett's lyrics were pretty much in your face & anti establishment in many ways. You'll have to see where he is now & make up your mind

What about cycling? Are we not bowing down to greed when we purchase bikes? We're supporting a large corporation. Aren't large corporations evil?

I was involved in the environmental movement when i was in High School & supported many well known groups. I then began to turn away from them when i realized they used violence in their means. How can people on one hand want to bring about change & use aggressive tactics but still maintain acceptance?

I don't agree that destroying something in the built environment will bring about the change we want. On the other hand, I do as it's a wake up call. Then I begin to think about how much it costs in the clean up.

I am still in the process of thinking about this. I spent much of my time on the singletrack uphill climbs today thinking about this.

One more thing. A good friend of ours in NZ is a professional embroider(educated in the UK) & well respected in Australasia for her work. She looks like a skinhead but has 2 kids, married, a car & a house.

[Tuckervill]

There's still a long ride ahead, and some of us are halfway up the mountain (yea!!!!) in years.

I just want to still enjoy its moments, become/remain strong for inclement weather at times, thank those who love me and are cheering me on, be humble enough if I'm tired I will get off bike and walk abit before climbing back on, make some new friends, help a few along the way, learn more and more, laugh before I sleep forever.

Nicely put.

Karen

[ZenSojourner]

Let me just add a footnote to what crazycanuck has said.

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's hypocrisy.

Selling out isn't about conforming a bit on the outside so you can keep body and soul together and, more important, PAY THE PEOPLE YOU OWE.

Selling out is about lying, cheating, and stealing. It's about lack of integrity. It's about selfishness.

Is your sense of self and integrity is so shallow and poorly rooted that it can be damaged by moderating your appearance so you can get a job and pay your bills? It's a shame if so.

If you want to talk about ethics, then don't try to paint the fact that you are running out on debts you ran up in good faith as if it's a great adventure of self-expression and "being true" to some higher good.

When you borrow money and then don't make a good-faith effort to pay it off, that's stealing. That's lying, because you are going back on the agreement you made when you borrowed the money. That's a lack of integrity, because you are willfully breaking the promises you made. That's selfish, because you're taking off to play when what is needed is to work and pay back the people you owe.

I think credit card companies are one of the greatest evils on the face of the planet, and I haven't had a credit card in 20 years. But the truth is that you took out those "high interest credit cards", no one forced you to take them and, more to the point, USE them. You took out those student loans, there was no corporate enforcer standing with a gun to your head forcing you to do so.

If this conversation has become about "hair color", it's because you have made it THE issue. Not us. You're the one who thinks that changing the color of your hair is somehow going to soil and dirty your soul.

In a sense, you're right. You're hair color really DOESN'T matter, in the greater scheme of things. And SINCE it doesn't matter, it shouldn't matter if you change it so you can get a job and pay your bills.

It all sounds very high-minded. But in the end it's an excuse to run out on your responsibilities. Because you are too inflexible and rigid to even consider moderating your appearance - which is, after all, even LESS than skin deep, being that it's ALL surface stuff - you are unlikely to get a job to pay the bills you ran up. Running off to Europe isn't going to change any of the societal ills you are complaining about, or do a thing to pay off any of your bills. Flying on the plane means you are partaking of the evils you blame on McDonald's and Starbucks; riding trains on your "Euro youth pass", hitching rides, you're partaking of the benefits of the society you decry; even eating food that you didn't grow yourself means you are benefiting from the evil, evil, horrible society you think the world has only recently become.

What was that? What's the definition of hypocrisy?

You don't fight evil by running away. You fight evil by starting with the small evils that we meet in every day life. You fight evil by not lying; by not cheating; by not stealing; by living up to the responsibilities you took on, by keeping your promises. Even when it's hard. Even when, horror of horrors! - it means wearing clothes you don't like.

It's not about not drinking Starbucks Coffee. It's not about not eating at McDonalds. It's not about, thank god, eating out of dumpsters from some warped sense of moral superiority.

You fight evil by resisting it in your daily life.

You don't start on a global scale; you start with your self, your own life. You start by keeping your promises.

You start with the woman in the mirror.

And if that takes actual, real sacrifice, then you make that sacrifice, such as, say, by facing your responsibilities and doing whatever it takes to get a job and pay your bills instead of taking your security deposit and going gallivanting across Europe. Talk about exploitative; you want to go on safari, LOL! And one of the MOST exploitative industries on the planet is the very fashion industry you so badly want to plug yourself into.

You know, joining the peace corps not only permits you to be of service to others - REAL service, not the lip service of withholding $5 for a double chocolate mocha latte with extra foam from Starbucks - it also puts your student loans on hold, giving you some legitimate breathing space while you figure a few things out. It gives you the opportunity to right some of those evils you talk about so blithely in the abstract, only up close and personal. It would give you some badly needed experience with the real world and the people who actually HAVE to live in it. It would give you experiences that could not only lead to personal growth, but to learning and honing skills that will be useful in a wide variety of job situations. Maybe working for an organization focused on righting some of the BIG wrongs you talk about. It might serve your soul better than becoming just another fashionista, don't you think?

All this talk about regretting things undone is silly; you're 25 years old. You have plenty of time to work, meet your responsibilities, save up, and go on safari some other time when it won't mean ducking out on your debts.

[papaver]

All this talk about regretting things undone is silly; you're 25 years old. You have plenty of time to work, meet your responsibilities, save up, and go on safari some other time when it won't mean ducking out on your debts.

[indigoiis]

You don't fight evil by running away. You fight evil by starting with the small evils that we meet in every day life. You fight evil by not lying; by not cheating; by not stealing; by living up to the responsibilities you took on, by keeping your promises. Even when it's hard. Even when, horror of horrors! - it means wearing clothes you don't like.

I see a parallel between this and learning to ride hills.

It's taken a long time (and life experience) for me to go from being a victim of society to being a member of it... in the same way that it took time (and experience) to learn how to pace myself on hills, rather than be a victim of my own blowheadedness.

I like this post!

[Pedal Wench]

Ivana - you might wonder why we're all "ganging up" on you. It's simple. We're all facing our responsibilities. We're all doing what we can to repay our debts. We're all paying for YOUR food stamps. We're all suffering more because people like you are shirking their debt and WE have to pay more because of that.

There are jobs. They're not trendy coffeeshop jobs. They're grocery stores, and bus drivers, and dry cleaners, and lawncare. But they pay.

Woman up.

[OakLeaf]

I hope some of you all who are being so hard on Ivona take a minute to remember just how confusing it was to learn that everything you knew was wrong. We all go through that, don't we? Is there any one of us over 45 who really believed we - or any other human being - would live to see the year 2000?

As we get older, most of us get a little jaded. Many of us get a LOT jaded. Some of us pretend we never learned those lessons and that everything we've always known is right. I suppose some really never learn. The rest just make a decision, conscious or unconscious, as to what we're going to ignore and what we're going to try to do something about. It's next to impossible to both (1) do no harm and (2) engage in society.

The best of us are those who can lose the confusion but keep the passion. People like my sister (both sisters, really - my middle sister chose a VERY different path from the youngest), people like Barbara Kingsolver, just to pick one famous person, people like some of the civil rights lawyers and musicians I've known.

We all have to find our own way, and the way out of confusion is not always to make a firm commitment to something you don't really believe in. (Sometimes it is, I'll grant. But definitely not always.) I don't think it's helpful for any of us to pretend that the way we've chosen for ourselves is the only way for anyone else. As far as "get a job," maybe some of you missed the story where almost 400 people just applied for one school janitor job. It's not like work is out there for the picking right at the moment. And most of the jobs that are out there don't even pay the bills.

[NbyNW]

. . . um . . . I don't think Ivona is planning to duck her debts. If I remember correctly, the first loan payment check doesn't come calling the day after gradution, does it? My understanding was that part of the purpose of the trip was to help her to figure out the next step, which likely includes a plan to pay off loans.

All this talk about regretting things undone is silly; you're 25 years old. You have plenty of time to work, meet your responsibilities, save up, and go on safari some other time when it won't mean ducking out on your debts.

Respectfully disagree. You never know when your time is going to run out. And meeting one's responsibilities does not have to be mutually exclusive to living a live without regret.

[ZenSojourner]

Sorry, Oakleaf. Living up to one's responsibilities is the hallmark of adulthood.

Who asked anyone to "make a firm commitment to something (you) don't really believe in"?

I'm pretty sure we've all chosen DIFFERENT ways, so there's no "one way, the only way" stuff going on here.

The point is that she isn't even willing to seriously try for a job, not that she hasn't got one. That she's made plans to duck out on her debts rather than plans to try to find some way to pay them and stick it out. In fact for every piece of advice she's been given for ways to make herself more marketable on the job market, or to conserve resources, she has a million excuses for why she can't (won't) do that, and why us asking her to is the moral equivalent of trying to force her into white slavery.

I've been on my own since I was 17 years old. This girl is 25 years old. She's not a child anymore, or shouldn't be.

[ZenSojourner]

. . . um . . . I don't think Ivona is planning to duck her debts. If I remember correctly, the first loan payment check doesn't come calling the day after gradution, does it?

She has 2 credit cards she's ducking out on. None of her plans address any of the loans at all. She's part way into her grace period already. The grace period is to give graduates a chance to find a job, not to go jaunting around the world. All her "plan" is going to do is guarantee that when the loans come due (and she's already I think she said 3 months behind on her credit cards) she won't have a way to pay them.

[mtbdarby]

Mmmmmm, I wonder how different my life would be today if ZenSojourner had been my mom Or I had been a member of TE in my 20's......

I too am enjoying this thread. I miss having people in my life with this type and diversity of wisdom. It really gets you thinking about your choices - which is a good thing in my opinion.

If I didn't have kids or furbabies I would be in the Peace Corp or Job Corp now. Great idea Zen!

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Let me just add a footnote to what crazycanuck has said.

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's hypocrisy.

Selling out isn't about conforming a bit on the outside so you can keep body and soul together and, more important, PAY THE PEOPLE YOU OWE.

Selling out is about lying, cheating, and stealing. It's about lack of integrity. It's about selfishness.

Is your sense of self and integrity is so shallow and poorly rooted that it can be damaged by moderating your appearance so you can get a job and pay your bills? It's a shame if so.

If you want to talk about ethics, then don't try to paint the fact that you are running out on debts you ran up in good faith as if it's a great adventure of self-expression and "being true" to some higher good.

When you borrow money and then don't make a good-faith effort to pay it off, that's stealing. That's lying, because you are going back on the agreement you made when you borrowed the money. That's a lack of integrity, because you are willfully breaking the promises you made. That's selfish, because you're taking off to play when what is needed is to work and pay back the people you owe.

I think credit card companies are one of the greatest evils on the face of the planet, and I haven't had a credit card in 20 years. But the truth is that you took out those "high interest credit cards", no one forced you to take them and, more to the point, USE them. You took out those student loans, there was no corporate enforcer standing with a gun to your head forcing you to do so.

If this conversation has become about "hair color", it's because you have made it THE issue. Not us. You're the one who thinks that changing the color of your hair is somehow going to soil and dirty your soul.

In a sense, you're right. You're hair color really DOESN'T matter, in the greater scheme of things. And SINCE it doesn't matter, it shouldn't matter if you change it so you can get a job and pay your bills.

It all sounds very high-minded. But in the end it's an excuse to run out on your responsibilities. Because you are too inflexible and rigid to even consider moderating your appearance - which is, after all, even LESS than skin deep, being that it's ALL surface stuff - you are unlikely to get a job to pay the bills you ran up. Running off to Europe isn't going to change any of the societal ills you are complaining about, or do a thing to pay off any of your bills. Flying on the plane means you are partaking of the evils you blame on McDonald's and Starbucks; riding trains on your "Euro youth pass", hitching rides, you're partaking of the benefits of the society you decry; even eating food that you didn't grow yourself means you are benefiting from the evil, evil, horrible society you think the world has only recently become.

What was that? What's the definition of hypocrisy?

You don't fight evil by running away. You fight evil by starting with the small evils that we meet in every day life. You fight evil by not lying; by not cheating; by not stealing; by living up to the responsibilities you took on, by keeping your promises. Even when it's hard. Even when, horror of horrors! - it means wearing clothes you don't like.

It's not about not drinking Starbucks Coffee. It's not about not eating at McDonalds. It's not about, thank god, eating out of dumpsters from some warped sense of moral superiority.

You fight evil by resisting it in your daily life.

You don't start on a global scale; you start with your self, your own life. You start by keeping your promises.

You start with the woman in the mirror.

And if that takes actual, real sacrifice, then you make that sacrifice, such as, say, by facing your responsibilities and doing whatever it takes to get a job and pay your bills instead of taking your security deposit and going gallivanting across Europe. Talk about exploitative; you want to go on safari, LOL! And one of the MOST exploitative industries on the planet is the very fashion industry you so badly want to plug yourself into.

You know, joining the peace corps not only permits you to be of service to others - REAL service, not the lip service of withholding $5 for a double chocolate mocha latte with extra foam from Starbucks - it also puts your student loans on hold, giving you some legitimate breathing space while you figure a few things out. It gives you the opportunity to right some of those evils you talk about so blithely in the abstract, only up close and personal. It would give you some badly needed experience with the real world and the people who actually HAVE to live in it. It would give you experiences that could not only lead to personal growth, but to learning and honing skills that will be useful in a wide variety of job situations. Maybe working for an organization focused on righting some of the BIG wrongs you talk about. It might serve your soul better than becoming just another fashionista, don't you think?

All this talk about regretting things undone is silly; you're 25 years old. You have plenty of time to work, meet your responsibilities, save up, and go on safari some other time when it won't mean ducking out on your debts.

I'm saving all you have written, for my own personal life inspiration. This whole thread was worth it just to read your posts.
You rock.