*Zen and the Art of Finding Employment*
By: Gottin-Himmel
25 November 2013

Many Rubies have had at least some experience with unemployment or underemployment during the Great Recession. If you've tried the route of newspaper ads, online job postings and the like, you know all about that wasteland.

I'm no different. But I have one tool in my toolbox that has worked for me in the past and that has worked again. Don't ask me how it works. It's not a straight-line process and it defies logic.

I'll borrow shamelessly from psychologist Carl Jung and call it Tapping into the Mass Unconscious.

Wait. I don't carry crystals around with me and I don't channel Egyptian princesses through my toaster. I believe in the scientific method and empirical evidence. But there are some things that lie outside the realm of rational explanation. This is one of them.

I was downsized eight months ago. While limping along on unemployment compensation, I picked up occasional writing gigs with my former employer and online content sites. My AO has a higher-than-average unemployment rate, so I knew that finding a job in my field would be hard to find. In the middle of all the normal angst and anxiety, I thought about the kind of career move that would work the best for me.

• Not having to relocate. My home is my base of operations for family reasons. I needed a good telecommuting position.
• Something in my general area of expertise, writing.
• A salary that would allow me to live well and to accelerate my prepping.
• A reasonable workload. No more 18-hour workdays for this ol' gal.

I kept this checklist in the back of my mind as the months ticked by. And I remembered a group of people I worked with 20 years ago. I found them through a small newspaper ad back in 1992, and a bell went off in my head when I read the ad.

That bell marked the start of a years-long period of satisfying and lucrative work. And I think there's something "cosmic" about that connection.

I thought about my old work group four months ago. I covered an air show for my local newspaper the following week and met the owner of the local radio station. He recruited me to do some work for the station. My ex contacted me a few days later and said that my old boss from long ago needed writers.

The shift in my fortunes didn't happen overnight. It took about three months for the pieces to fall into place. I kept my mental checklist hovering somewhere in my head and kept slogging along. One day, I went shopping for career clothes after a few weeks of careful budgeting. I knew that something was going to happen.

It did. The phone rang all the next day and my email inbox filled up the next day.

I got the salary I wanted, without tossing out even a ballpark figure. The workload is exactly what I wanted.

"Whoopee, Gottin! You got what you wanted. Things don't work out like that for me."

I'm not special and I'm not mystically blessed in any way. I think I'm just "tuned in" somehow. I make dark jokes about my seemingly prophetic dreams about disaster. Sometimes it works the other way.

If you want to try this for yourself, please do. If you're concerned about possible satanic influences, let me just say that I put it all in God's hands and trust in His guidance. That's about as spiritual as I want to be in this article.

• Believe that it will work. It's okay to have your doubts, but be open to the possibilities.
• Write a list of what's important to you and what you need. Then throw it away. You've just set that mass unconscious thingy in motion.
• You might have to wait a bit. Keep busy and keep making progress in other areas of your life.
• Repeat "quickly, easily and perfectly" to yourself. Once things start to happen, they often happen in a flash and in the best possible way.
• f you have a sudden urge to take specific action, do it. It means something.
• Give Thanks for Your Good Fortune. You didn't exactly build this by yourself.

This article is part of my giving thanks. Take it to the bank. It works.

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