Dealing with unemployment - anyone else?

[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.