There’s a whole world out there, he wrote as the first line, without understanding why. But what do I mean? Let’s try again.
I’m generally a positive, optimistic dude. I don’t get down, and when I do, even though I said I don’t, I do, and when I do, I recognize it now as just a state of mind that will pass, rather than a reasonable and appropriate response to the general directed shittiness of a world that is perfectly designed to bring me down.
You know what I mean, right? You’ve felt that, right? It’s easy to go down that path. And you tell the positive people that they’re so dumb and full of shit and the world isn’t like that, that’s not reality, and you cynical yourself right into some asshole’s couch where you have to pay $250 for 45 minutes of someone just to say, in a very polite way, “have you considered the possibility you might be completely full of shit in every aspect and every regard?”
But I digress. I’m a positive dude. I try to think positive things. I do positive reinforcement, affirmations, mantras. I tell myself things like “everything’s gonna work out fine” and “I like myself,” and “nothing really ever gets me down” and these statements are a brain reprogramming itself just like a brain that says “there’s no one out there for me” and “I’ll never find anything” and “everything I touch turns to shit.”
So I’m DOWN with all that, and it works, trust me, after years of cynicism and finely honed complaining about damn near everything in life, I’m back, baby.
And I’m laid off. As I keep mentioning. Which is why I’m writing in here in the first place.
So I am in a place now where yeah – the negative thoughts are coming. The blight bubbles in through the cracks and I have to just clear it away and if it comes in faster than I can bail it out, I have to hold my breath and wait for morning when the tide goes out and it always does.
I should rename this blog, “Metaphor Mash.”
All of this just to say the following. One thing we tend to do at a time of loss is lament. And we think about all the things that were good that we no longer have and the brain deletes the things that were bad that we want nothing to do with.
So that’s what I mean when I title this entry “Let’s Focus On The Negative. You see, I got fired, it’s true. It happened. And yeah from the on-site pharmacy to the commute to that nice fat pharma paycheck that rolled in year after year, there was plenty there that I would consider “nice to have”. It was, in those respects, great. But thinking about that ain’t gonna help me when I’m ankle deep in blight and it’s soaking up towards my crotch, threatening to shrivel my testicles like two currants.
No. I have to focus on the negative. This is the one time in life when it’s useful. I had nothing but contempt for my upper management when I was there. They seemed to have one mission, one product that they produced, year over year, and that was (and is): new orgcharts. That really is it. They talked out of both sides of their mouths, and the company I worked for was a foreign firm, which meant that no matter how good you were or your ideas were, the mothership over in the EU had to call the shots. It’s one reason I’m gone. I’m not core.
At the time of my firing, I had two suits in my closet that I’ve bought over the past 15 years, both when things happened at work that I considered so egregious that I had to get another job. I never did, of course but I had the suits. At the time I was fired, I was, and is, a member of LinkedIn Premium, a $200+ annual subscription to extended job search features and whatnot. Who does that, if they’re happy where they are? If they love their job?
Last but not least – I was one of the last of the Mohicans. Pretty much everyone I’d come up through the ranks with was either already a victim of reorgs, or had taken early retirement. They rearranged the office into an open workplace where nobody had their own personal space, and it was just a lousy situation all around.
These are the things I am remembering now, the things I’m holding on to, the things that let me remember yes – it’s good. This is what you wanted. Now the universe has finally aligned. That means it’s time. Don’t fight your negative.
