Part 25 (1/2)
1. We can catch up on our sleep, even if it means we have to take naps during the day because our attempt to sleep at nighttime is, at the moment, a disaster. We tend to feel depressed if we are short on our sleep, or our body is otherwise run-down.
There are two states that can be easily confused:
First of all, the world never looks bright or happy to us when we are very short on sleep.
Secondly, the world never looks bright or happy to us when we are feeling depressed.
It is therefore easy to confuse the two feeling-states. Over the years, I have seen many job-hunters who first thought they were really depressed over their situation, later discover they were really depressed just because they were so tired. Or a bit of both. Anyway, sleep or nap, we often turn into happier, more upbeat people, just by catching up on our sleep. This can make us feel better-sometimes much better.
2. There are other things that we can do to keep ourselves more physically fit while unemployed. Job-hunters have told me they found it important to: get regular exercise, involving a daily walk; drink plenty of water each day (this seems silly, but I found out we tend to skip the water, and get dehydrated, when we're out of work); eliminate sugar as much as possible from the diet; take supplementary vitamins daily (no matter how many doctors and nutritionists try to tell us that we already get enough from our daily food); eat balanced meals (not just pig out on junk food in front of the telly); and all that other stuff that our mothers always told us to do.
3. We can do something about the physical s.p.a.ce around us. Our surroundings often mirror how we feel about ourselves. If our physical environment looks like a disaster area, that in itself can make us depressed. When we are unemployed, we can vow we will live simpler-something that maybe we've wanted to do, for a long time. We can begin by taking care that each time we handle a thing, we take it all the way to its new destination; we don't just drop it on the counter, thinking that we will deal with it later. We can take care that when we take our clothes off at night, we don't just drop them on the floor, but hang them up or put them in a laundry-hamper. And that, when we finish eating, we put the dishes where they are going to be washed, and put our food back in the refrigerator. And we can determine that when we do such things as get a screwdriver out, to fix a screw that's dropped out of something, that we take the screwdriver all the way back to the tool box or wherever its final destination is. And so on.
When we determine to always put our things away in a timely fas.h.i.+on, neatness will start to appear in our physical environment; this can help lift our spirits immensely, as our physical s.p.a.ce mirrors an upbeat life.
4. We can get outdoors daily and take a good walk. Hiding in our cave (figuratively speaking) will only make us feel more down. Seeing green trees (in season), sunlight, mountains, flowers, people, will do our heart good, each day.
5. We can focus on other people and their problems-not just our own. If our unemployment is dragging on and on, and we're starting to have a lot of time on our hands, we can find someplace in town that is dealing with people worse off than we are, and go volunteer there. I'm talking food banks, hospitals, housing aid, anything dealing with kids-especially deprived kids, or kids with tremendous handicaps-that sort of thing. We can do a search on Google, put in the name of our town or city plus the name of the problem we want to help with, and see what turns up. If we determine to help someone else in need, while we're unemployed, we won't feel so discarded by society.
And speaking of other people, we can renew our acquaintance with old friends. We can explore the friends.h.i.+ps we already have, not because they are useful in our job-hunt, but just because they are valuable human beings. A wise man named Phillips Brooks used to say there are two kinds of exploration: one involves going out to explore new country; the other involves digging down more deeply into the country we already occupy. Do both, when you're feeling down.
6. We can go on fun mini-adventures. Often there are portions of our surroundings that we have never explored, but a tourist would ”hit” on, the very first day they were there. I lived in New York City for a long time; never once went up in the Empire State Building. I lived in San Francisco for years; never once went out to the Zoo. You get the point. If I lived in either of these cities today, and was unemployed for any length of time, I would set out to visit places I'd never seen. We can stop obsessing about how much we lost from our past, and turn our face toward the future. There are new worlds to conquer, after all.
7. We can deal with our feelings by expanding our mental horizons, and learning something new. We can go read up on subjects that have always interested us, but we've never had enough time to explore. While we're unemployed, we have the time. If we can't think of any subject, there's always the human mind. The mind, after all, is what is trying hard to figure out what we should do next. The more we understand it, the better we can heal. If you're looking for suggestions, I'd read anything by Martin Seligman. There's Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life, which, as one reviewer commented, ”vaulted me out of my funk.” It has excellent chapters on dealing with depression. Or there's Seligman's most recent book, Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being. If you want to delve into improving your memory, there's Joshua Foer's Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. And, last but not least, if you want to learn more about how one mind influences another mind, there is Robert B. Cialdini's Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. All these authors have extensive videos on YouTube.
Speaking of videos, there are a million free videos online, where you can learn just about anything. In addition to videos, there are videocasts, webcasts, podcasts, and every other kind of -cast. You can type the word ”webcast,” plus the subject in which you are interested, into your favorite browser like Google, and then pick through whatever turns up. There are also, of course, books. For our Kindle Fire or Nook or iPad, or from online bookstores like Amazon or Barnes & n.o.ble, there are tons of eBooks available, running around ten bucks, or a little more.
Another subject to explore is the world around us. I love The Unofficial U.S. Census: Things the Official U.S. Census Doesn't Tell You About America, by Les Krantz and Chris Smith. My favorite factoid there, because it's related to what I was talking about in our first suggestion: ”More than one-third of Americans take naps.” Yes!
8. We can talk, talk, talk with our loved ones, or a close friend, about all the feelings we have. It's amazing how giving voice to thoughts and feelings, particularly when we don't much care for those thoughts and those feelings, causes them to lose their power over us. So we should do it, because otherwise stuff bottled up inside us tends to fester and grow. We don't want that. We must just take care that we don't pick the town gossip to confide in, nor a friend or loved one who just can't keep their mouth shut. You know who they are.
9. We can pound a punching bag or even some pillows, to get some of the angry energy out of us. I don't know why, but it's astonis.h.i.+ng how many of the unemployed have told me this actually helps them get rid of some of their anger. And this helps lift our depression as well. Sometimes feeling down, and feeling angry seem almost to be two different sides of the same coin. If we don't have a gym in our life we can build one at home, simply by putting a pile of pillows on top of our bed, and then pounding the pillows repeatedly, as hard as we can-without breaking anything in our hands, wrists, or arms. This often really helps. We are strange creatures.
10. We can make a list each day of the things that make us grateful, glad, or even happy, day by day. There is a habit of mind that is deadly while we're out of work, and that is spending too much of our day, every day, brooding about what is wrong in our lives: what is wrong with people, what is wrong with our situation, what is wrong with anything and everything. By listing the things we are thankful for, we teach ourselves to focus on what precious gifts we still have, whether they be intelligence, health, or love.
If we want to get over being depressed, it is crucial that we give up endless complaint, it is crucial that we come to forgiveness for any past wrongs done to us, it is crucial that we, as Baltasar Gracian put it, ”Get used to the failings of our friends, family, and acquaintances.... ” We are all human. We are all capable of turning our face toward the future, rather than toward the past.
Postscript
Millions of people in this country have no religious beliefs. But untold millions do. And it is not uncommon that for them, unemployment turns out to be a major spiritual crisis in their life. They cry out, ”How could G.o.d have let this happen to me-if He truly loved me?” Their faith, far from helping them out of depression, often plunges them into it. They write me and ask for some help and advice. Here is what I tell them.
We can revisit our picture of G.o.d and how He works in this world. In the Christian church, for example, the Creed does not begin with ”I believe there is a G.o.d.... ” It begins with ”I believe in G.o.d.... ” I think we all understand this distinction, between believing something about a friend of ours, say that she is tall, or smart, versus believing in that friend. To believe in someone is to trust them, and to trust that they feel toward us as they say they feel.
We can, instead of abandoning our faith, put some energy into rethinking our faith on a higher level. Some 89% of us in the U.S. say we believe in G.o.d, but the question is, What kind of G.o.d do we believe in? Half a century ago, a man wrote a book t.i.tled, Your G.o.d Is Too Small. Unemployment or any crisis often reveals how poor and small our concept of G.o.d is. It is small because it holds G.o.d responsible for everything that happens in the world.