After 16 months as a lay-about, I’m finally employed once again, and completed my first day at the new job today. Before this, I had never been without a job for as much as one day in some 32 years. Unfortunately, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and finally got caught in a company-wide layoff. My only regrets about the new job are that this didn’t happen a year ago before we blew through a year’s worth of savings and that I’ll be driving to Irvine every day. Fortunately, I’ll be able to offset my hours and beat most of the traffic, and we’ve purchased a “new” car with much better mileage than our minivan, and I’m hoping to do at least a partial telecommute soon.

So all in all, I’m lucky. I’ve found employment again before I had to sell my home, and now have a source of income comparable to what I had before the layoff. And my family has not had to feel deprived during this downtime in any significant way. Well, we did put off purchasing new computers for the kids, but they didn’t go hungry. And we’ve spent just as much time together as before (when I was working from home) if not more.

However, there are a great many people who have not been so lucky and are at the end of their ropes, or past that. The “Great Recession” has been a time of trial for many. And while there was some talk a while ago about a “double-dip” recession being anywhere from 25% to 50% probable, more recently it looks like that possibility has dwindled and the economy will continue to grow, albeit slowly.

But what does this mean for the future? Can the world’s economies grow in the face of all the global problems that the human race faces? How long? It seems that we need to adjust our thinking.

Until then, my time off and the various personal events that have gone on during the last year and a half, have given me a revitalized feeling toward life and toward what I want to do for myself and my family. Will I continue to write to my blogs? Probably, though I don’t know how frequently. I’m currently working on a fiction story that I want to have done, at least in a draft form, by the end of the year. I’d also like to write some flash fiction and I’ve got a couple of poems (song lyrics, really) that I’m working on. But now they have to share time with work and a couple of other time-sinks I plan to undertake in the near future, and the question is if I’m going to keep my interest in them.

To all my friends, thanks for being there. To my work friends, thanks for offering your help in my job search, and I hope I can repay you in kind if you ever find yourself in a similar situation.

And to everyone who is currently looking for work, hang in there and don’t give up. Don’t give in to the frustrations you may feel. That frustration won’t help, and will only take years off your life. You have to keep believing that things will work out, one way or another, and accept whatever life offers. I sincerely hope you don’t find yourself homeless, but even if you do, frustration and fear are killers. Don’t let them win.