So let me tell you about him. He is head of Job Search Training Systems in Indiana, and has worked with ex- offenders a lot over the years. Ex-offenders, regardless of their past history, and their counselors will find lots of help if you e-mail Dick at [email protected]. He will send you 126 pages of helpful information and guidance. It’s free. A great public service, from a tremendous human being.
ATTITUDE: FINALLY, YOU IN RELATION TO YOURSELF
As most of us know, the proper attitude toward ourselves is called “good self-esteem.” But self-esteem is an art. An art of balance. A balance between thinking too little of ourselves, and thinking too much of ourselves.
The name for thinking too much of ourselves is “egotism.” We have all run into that, at some point in our lives, so we know what it looks like. Some of us have even caught a passing glimpse of it in the mirror.
In our culture and others, we are taught to recoil from this in horror. We even have mythologies warning us against it; the story of Narcissus comes to mind. Poor guy! (See
In order to avoid egotism, a lot of us go way overboard in the other direction. We shrink from ever declaring that we have any virtue, any excellency, any special gifts, lest we be accused of boasting. And so we fall into that opposite pit from egotism, namely, ingratitude. We appear ungrateful for the gifts that life, the universe, God—you name it—has already given us.
So, how do we adopt the proper attitude toward our gifts—speaking of them honestly, humbly, gratefully— without sounding egotistical? Just this: the more you see your own gifts clearly, the more you must pay attention to the gifts that others have. The more sensitive you become to how unusual you are, the more you must become sensitive to how unusual those around you are. The more you pay attention to yourself, the more you must pay attention to others. The more you ponder the mystery of You, the more you must ponder the mystery of all those you encounter, every loved one, every friend, every acquaintance, every stranger.
Self-esteem is an art. It is the art of balance. A balance between thinking too little of ourselves, and thinking too much of ourselves. But we can only think too much of ourselves if we lose sight of others. Look at yourself, but equally look at them—with wonder.
That is the proper attitude we all should set as our goal.
Career-counselor: Well, I think that’s true. But you make yourself equal to others not by lowering yourself but by raising them up. I ask you, what are the favorite skills of your best friend or mate? Do you know? Are you sure? Have you asked them what they think? Have you complimented them on these skills, during the past week?
Career-counselor: No longer worried about being egotistical, eh?
Career-counselor: Just remember, it’s no sin to praise yourself as long as that heightens your awareness of what there is to praise in them.
THE FIVE PARTS OF JOB-HUNTING AS A SURVIVAL SKILL:
II. ADVANCED JOB-FINDING TECHNIQUES
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But, above all, try something.
Chapter 5. The Best and Worst Ways to Look for Those Job Vacancies That
Number of people in the U.S. who found jobs the month I am writing: 3,907,000.
Number of vacancies still unfilled at the end of this month: 3,093,000.
Imagine we find ourselves in some U.S. city that we haven’t been to, in ten years.
We had a friend there, and we wonder if he’s still there; or has he moved, or maybe died. We decide to look him up in the phone book. We come up empty. No phone number for anyone by that name. We decide, therefore, that he doesn’t live there anymore.
Well, we’re wrong. He does still live there. It’s just that, like 26.6 percent of all American homes, he’s switched completely from a landline to a cell phone, and cell phones aren’t listed in the local phone book.
So, what was our error? (
The first is, we chose the wrong method to try and find him.
The second, and more grievous error, is we falsely concluded that because we couldn’t find him with our method, this meant that he didn’t exist. Didn’t exist
Okay, now fast-forward to a time when we’re out of work. We are looking for a job. We turn to the Internet, and search all the job boards: Monster, CareerBuilder, LinkUp, Craigslist, Indeed, SimplyHired, and so forth. We can’t find any work. What is it we all typically say at this point? Well, you know what we say: “There are no jobs out there. I’ve looked until I’m blue in the face.” We’ve just made the same error, again, as we did with our friend and the phone book. We’ve assumed that “Can’t find” = “doesn’t exist.”
So, if you’re out of work, survival job-hunting begins with a simple mantra. Write it out, stick it on your bathroom mirror, read it every morning while you’re unemployed:
Just because you can’t find them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. You’ve got to change the way you’re looking for them. Because there are
Let’s tackle right off the bat the most vexing question that then faces us regarding job-search: why do our elementary job-hunting skills work so well at finding those vacancies during good times, but come up empty during hard times such as we are presently in?
The answer to this begins with a profoundly overlooked fact. And that is, generally speaking,
