Soundpolitic on Work and Looking for Work

I continue to be amazed at the wireless Internet connectivity of this little laptop.  Over the weekend, I got it working with a little help from my friend, a Noble Savage working on a master's thesis regarding Dutch purchases of Mohican land, while we were both congregating to work on our respective writing goals.

Now, in the days that followed, I've gotten the thing working at two local libraries!  Now I'm no longer limited to only a half-hour in my hometown of Berne, which had computers that were not kind to my document formatting; I only have a trial version of Word 07 here, and like to use good-old-fasion ANSI text to convert documents like resumes and cover letters (and blogs!) from programs like WordPad or the MS Works Word Processor.  While I have a heartfelt respect for the place and its kind staff of librarians, I just can't get any work done there...

...at least not until I realized how much I could get done!  This laptop of my brother's only works well in Safe Mode.  But for the longest time, I just gave up on it.  That's not the laptop's fault!  Now, I'm blogging just on a whim in the Guilderland library, which also has WiFi, and this place was great as far as offering a full hour on its computers, which have all the word processing formatting tools I needed to begin with. 

Isn't it amazing when the following principle proves itself:

Attitude + Aptitude = Altitude

Lionle Richie said that in one of his interviews on Nathan East's DVD "The Business of Bass", which, along with Flea's bass DVD "Adventures in Spontaneous Jamming and Techniques", I consider required viewing for anyone.  The advice contained in these videos are music-oriented and specific to a single instrument, yes.  But see the above quote again.  Tell me you can't apply that to basic everyday things, especially your dayjob.

Or lack thereof, in my case.  I'm currently applying my knowledge of music into practice in language.  And that means more than just spontaneous jamming on blogspot.  It means crafting perfect resumes and cover letters and following up with personalized thank you notes and phone calls to confirm after nailing in-person interviews.  It's all music...see my last post if none of this makes sense.

The point is, the advice I've been privy to all my life seems to have finally clicked after a full year of ignoring it.  It is so much easier to just wallow and declare "This isn't working!" and "Why won't the hire me!?" in anger and frustration.  The root of these emotions is fear, my friends.  Nothing more, nothing less. I was the one who wasn't working; I was the one who was placing the blame on those who fired me.  And I was the one who was focusing on the trials of my past and the bleak outlook I'd constructed for my futurer instead of taking action in the present moment.

Today, I'm taking action.  I'm sitting zazen with frequency again, and let me tell you, lots of stuff can happen when you're doing something as stupid as sitting cross-legged on a sleeping bag in front a wall just before bed and just after waking up.  I'm no Zen Master like, say, this punk-rocker, but I'll tell you what: I'm starting to see the changes in between getting up.

In any case, when it comes to being unemployed and future employment, I came up with the following first rule and have since adopted the second rule with the help of my aforementioned friend:

Rule #1:  I don't work for jerks!
Rule #2:  If I'm not working, then get to work!

With that, I've gotta peace out....I've got work to do.  I'm sure you do too, so...keep up the good work!