I procrastinated the $&!% out of this first post.
Mere hours after losing my job, the brilliant idea occurred to me to start a blog for people who are also laid off, or have been laid off in the past, or may be laid off in the future. So basically for everyone.
Before I had the chance to experience doubt or despair, which came the following day, I had posted about said blog on LinkedIn. I suppose that was my subconscious way of holding myself accountable. (It worked.)
A post titled “The Five Stages of Unemployment” came to me immediately, a satirical mirror of the five stages of grief, and I started writing frenetically. But part way through I could see how this could feel like a slap in the face to anyone really struggling. It’s funny to me now, after a career total of four job losses (a veritable veteran am I) and financially prepared for unemployment, but would it have been funny to me in the aftermath of my first layoff? And if not, what the h-e-double-toothpicks am I trying to do?
I did what I always do when I have a problem to solve. I bought a book. (I’ll use any excuse to buy a book.) In this case, a book about the basics of writing a blog. “Chapter 1: Who Is Your Audience?” Riiiight. Writing 101. Identify the audience and the purpose.
I started with an ideal audience of all human beings, but it will undoubtedly be narrowed down to those who can read, and further filtered down to some group with a quirky sense of humor, a category that I have no idea how to define in terms of demographics, much less assign an actual name. Like Barb. Is Barb my ideal audience? Bloody hell I don’t know! That’s for the web software to tell me. (Gees, I’m just unemployed and this author already wants me to do someone else’s job for free.)
I was raised with the understanding that just about everything is funny if you squint your eyes hard enough, cock your head sideways, and view it catty-corner through the blurred prism of your eyelashes. My mom grew up in a small wooden house in a diminutive remote southern town in the United States with a dirt floor and no indoor plumbing. She and all of her siblings still turned out to be absolutely hilarious. Humor is a coping mechanism, sure, but a really fun one.
Now that I’ve justified making fun of almost anything, let’s talk about what that anything will be. Unemployment – for sure. I have way too much experience with it not to include it. However, the thought of only writing about unemployment both paralyzes and depresses me. That’s a no-go. So again, what am I doing?
The only thing I’ve ever wanted to do, at its most basic level, is make other people’s lives better, in at least some small way. That has been my guiding star. Whether I’ve been successful is another story, but if I can write some words that help even one person weather life’s dodgeballs a tiny bit better than without those words, then I will have fulfilled my life’s purpose.
Oh my god this blog is the meaning of life!
Just kidding.
Dodgeball – yes, that wonderful game where bullies and children with precocious puberty get to pelt the weaklings in the head with balls moving sometimes 80 mph (128.7 kph), literally staggering and disorienting the victim. A game where your brain gets jangled and you temporarily have no idea whatsoever what just happened. And just like in middle school gym class, you have to keep going no matter the damage because life, just like your gym teacher, could care less whether you have a traumatic brain injury.
Okay, so I want to write words to help those experiencing the dodgeballs of life cope just a teensy bit better, even if for only a few minutes, and maybe occasionally be the cause a of a weak smile. Or at least a smirk. But also I’ll include any other topic I find funny, because I get bored easily and because this is my blog and you can write the purely virtuous blog because this probably won’t be that.
I think I’ve set the bar low enough for success. Stop back next week when we’ll talk about…something related to unemployment. I’ll figure out the details before next week.