THE BEST THINGS I’VE DONE WHILE UNEMPLOYED.

If you’re like me, the journey you’ve taken following your termination involves as many distinct emotions as Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’ famous five stages of grief in death and dying.  Kübler-Ross classified the stages in the cycle as denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  I’m not exactly sure that I understand the bargaining phase and how it might relate to the loss of a job and not a person, but I experienced the four other emotions in spades.  The depression bit, unfortunately, lasted the longest.

Luckily, in dealing with unemployment unlike death, there are still major feelings to go through after acceptance.  You know that you have to start looking for another job and that in this economy it will probably take a quite a few months, but you are also seized by the desire to do something utterly fantastic that you most likely wouldn’t have done while gainfully employed.  Helpful friends and relatives tell you that you will regret spending this time focusing only on your job search, and that this can be a wonderful period of self-exploration and adventure.  Perhaps getting laid off will be the best thing ever to happen to you! You wrack your brain trying to remember what your true destiny was supposed to be, while all around you your unemployed friends and former colleagues seem to be doing amazing things with their now free schedules.  You go from envying your still employed friends and their steady paychecks (and they keep telling you that they are miserable anyway) to wondering why you can’t take advantage of your liberation in the same way your seemingly flourishing 405er friends are.  What should this stage be called?

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