Phase 22: "Powdermilk Biscuits" - Do what needs to be done

So, what is there to write about in a blog on unemployment, once I have attained a job?  Would it make any sense to continue writing, or should I just quit and move on? Part of me says, "Sure, just stop the senseless blathering on already!". Yet, another part - the part that has me at the keyboard - says, "You should keep writing! You have a job, but are you happy?"


I think it's more about the biscuits... Powdermilk biscuits to be exact.


"Heavens they're tasty and expeditious..."

Work. Job. Career. Ar this point in life I should be a mid-career professional at SOMETHING, yes? I should, by societal standards be enjoying the tasty biscuits of my success. I should be at the mid-management phase of a job, which will be stable, and provide me steady income until I retire and enter the hopefully long walk of retirement. Instead I am transitioning, yet again to another job, so that I can pay the bills, after all I do have a son heading off to college in two days. I should be able to say, "Look at me. I have done it! I have made something of myself! See, look, this is what a normal adult has to show for 20 plus years after college."


"Made from whole wheat....by Norwegein bachelor farmers..."

But I don't really want anyone to look too closely. By most standards I have done most of the right things along the way; I graduated from high school and college. I got a job in the field that I was trained in. Pursued that until life begins to throw it's curves at me. I changed jobs, got married, changed jobs, got credit cards, got sick, paid bills, changed jobs, had kids, dealt with loss, changed jobs, paid bills, paid bills, paid bills, changed jobs... and so on. Some of life's changes we choose, some we just have to deal with, really, in that regard, I'm not that much different than anyone else I guess.

"...so you know they're not only good for you, but also pure, mostly..."


So at this point I should be looking ahead at the expected comforts of retirement - secure income, helping to provide for the needs of my children as they become parents, etc. Instead, if find myself in what seems like the same repeating loop. I have a 'job' that pays 'enough' to keep us just enough in front of the proverbial 8-ball, to pay the bills. But, I look around and see that though I have "been pure, mostly" I don't have enough to do the things parents are supposed to do - I can't pay for my kids college education, I can't take my kids on summer vacations, I can't buy my kid a car, I could go on but it gets depressing...

 "...which give shy persons the strength to get up and do what needs to be done..."

I believe the question that most often gets overlooked in all this is equally simple; "Do you LOVE what you do for a living?" The sad thing is that the statistics show that the answer to this question to nearly 8 out of 10 Americans is a resounding, NO! The longer I spent unemployed, and the longer I spend at this current job, the more I begin to see the insanity of this! I don't have all the answers about how to resolve this issue, but as I see my son going off to college I have made a pact with myself to NEVER suggest he get a 'regular-job' so he can 'pay the bills' or so he can 'be a regular person'. 

Personally, I think I made that mistake too many times. As P.T. Barnum has said, "There's a sucker born every minute." That is oh, so true. Very few people - no matter what their education level or job experience really have the strength to take the advice of those around us and then strike out on our own... Part of this is because we have been taught all our lives what it means to WORK, to do something that is deemed 'worthy' by the rest of the world. Very rarely do we listen to our hearts, our souls, and there fore we spend most of our WORK lives dreading what we do and looking forward to 'retirement' - that mystical time in the future when we can finally quit our 'jobs' and 'finally do what we love to do'. 


"... they're tasty and expeditious." 

Frankly, I'm sick and tired of this philosophy. One thing that being unemployed has taught me is that there is real, economic value to what I love to do, and I don't want to waste much more time, NOT doing it. 

Yet the dilemma is this... Here I am again, do I continue making biscuits, making them the same way all the time -  having taken a 'regular' job, to pay the bills, to build some kind of hope for the future - or dwo I slam my powdered hands on the table and say, "Damnit! I'm sick of biscuits! I want to make CAKE!" I I don't want to waste much more time making or doing things for someone else's profit.