I was running with my friends the other morning and we were all talking about weight we'd like to lose (cliche, no?) when I mentioned I thought my legs were the biggest part of me. (They are an inheritance from my mom's side of the family.) My companion said, "So? Mine are bigger. And someone else's are bigger than mine, and someone else's are bigger than hers, and so on and so on....There will always be worse." I think her point was that no matter how bad you think you have it, someone somewhere is in a worse spot than you are.
I think I'm going to try to remember this whenever I feel like complaining. Maybe take a second look at what I'm about to gripe about, and decide if it's really worth the gripe. DH and I discussed that this afternoon, and he mentioned a PBS show he watched last night that gave him food for thought. See, DH's company has been in some financial troubles over the past few months (it's a small company) and its very existence is currently in jeopardy, so it's looking like he will have to find another job in a field where lots of other people are in the same spot - out of work, I mean. He is understandably worked up over this, which is why he was watching PBS in the middle of the night.
Anyway, he was all full of butterflies over his employment situation and turned on this show about 2 women, roommates, who are middle-aged and both living with disabilities. One has MS, and the other, who must act as caregiver, has Down's Syndrome. (Wow, right?) Anyway, they both are on Medicaid or Medicare (DH couldn't remember which) and some sort of their disability coverage was threatening to be discontinued. Apparently they were claiming that they were homebound (probably true, for the most part), but under some law, "homebound" means that you really can't ever leave your home if you want to be considered as such. These women heard about some group that was lobbying for this law to be changed, and decided to go to Washington to join in the lobby. Medicaid (or Medicare or whoever) somehow found out that they left their home, and promptly began an investigation into whether they really needed that coverage. (Wow again.) So then all this then made DH rethink his situation and realize that okay, he has a few contacts with acquaintances in his field who have gotten him interviews and names of recruiters, his boss and coworkers all have good things to say about him, and maybe we could be grateful for what we have and not pull out our hair just yet.
The whole job question and the accompanying what-ifs (what if we have to move? what if there's nothing out there? what if we do get an offer but it's really low and it's the only one?) aren't resolved yet, so I don't know if a moral is a little premature, but here it is: there's always someone with fatter legs.
4 comments:
We feel your pain! There's something to being in a position like this that makes you grasp at anything to get you through--so thank goodness there is someone else with fatter legs! (Not to make light of their suffering, but more in the way of look what they're going through or have gone through and they're surviving, so we will too). Anyway, I really hope things look up for you soon. (We're still looking for something better, what he's doing now is not good so again, we feel your pain). Maybe we should get together and watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang so the we can sing the song, "Up from the ashes grow the roses of success!"
So true, Janette. And having just endured the cross-country move for the only job offer (for much less than we lived on before) I can tell you that there are still many, many people much worse off than us. After many months of anxiety, I began to think, "Well, what's the very worst that can happen? We lose the job. Lose the house. Move in with mom & dad. Stock shelves @ Walmart. And we'd get by. And eventually things would get better." Grim thoughts, certainly, but it helped me to look at the bottom and realize that we could survive such a fall.
What a great post! I totally know how you feel. I am grateful I am in the industry I am in. But I often remind my family how truly blessed we are. Good luck to your hubby.
My legs are fatter than yours ha ha
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