Inspiration Point

by Annie Scott
July 16, 2010

Here’s what’s going on in a land far away but not so far apart from the Mitten …

One of the few good things to come out of this struggling economy, with its disastrous unemployment rate and litany of stability-shattering challenges, is the fact that it is inspiring some people to try to change their life and livelihood for the better.

In a roundabout way, the shoddy state of things and lack of appealing alternatives are giving some people who have lost their jobs an excuse to imagine and develop opportunities they may not have taken a chance on, or even dared think about, had their jobs remained intact.

Like many of you, I know a large number of people — neighbors, friends, friends’ spouses — who lost their job during the past two years. It should come as no surprise that many of them are in California and Michigan, two of the states hardest hit and whose unemployment rates remain in the top three in the nation.

Most of these people had no idea the axe was coming and had not planned on making any sort of career change in the near future. Job loss hit them hard. They felt depressed and sorry for their situation. They looked for a replacement job and searched dutifully, yet unsuccessfully.

Then, some of them got inspired to try something altogether different, something they had always wanted to do but had lacked the appropriate chance or motivation to try.

After losing his job last year, one friend made the most of his newfound free time by taking community college courses to pursue the web design career he always regretted slighting in favor of, ironically, a “more stable” path in finance.

Another friend/corporate layoff casualty recently decided this is the perfect time to try out her dream of becoming a personal style consultant by day and stand-up comedienne by night. In all the years I’ve known her, I have never seen her so excited about working.

Yet another friend is enjoying the perks of low interest rates and following his longtime dream of opening a bakery. It’s set to open next month.

Another is finally writing the much-clichéd, long-deferred Great American Novel.

And one couple, living in New York for the past few years, decided this is the ideal time to head back home to the Mitten, since now they can afford to buy a house there.

Several other friends are heading to law school and other graduate programs to enrich their minds and credentials while they wait for the job market to thaw.

In living the glum reality behind double-digit unemployment stats, all of my peers mentioned above went through steps that typically follow a bout of mettle-testing misfortune: anger, self-pity, anxiety, grief, frustration, boredom, depression.

But, finally, inspiration arrived. It appeared somewhere in the midst of the humbling, drawn-out, fruitless job hunt. Sometime after suffering through endless months of sending résumés into a black hole and sitting through the far-too-infrequent, uncomfortable interviews. At that point, a number of them realized maybe they don’t want to settle for another lackluster, blah job for a blah company doing blah knows what that is anything but passion-stoking. Maybe, they realized, there is another option.

And, so inspired, they started to let their minds wander.

Wandering starts with an innocent “What do I want to do?” Soon, they recall Their Dream. They wonder what happened to it. And, eventually, they wonder, Why not now?!

Once inspired, their hope has passion behind it as they look ahead to doing something that matters to them.

A lot of the newly inspired types I know currently are in their 20s. A recent New York Times article examining this demographic caught my eye. It pondered whether this group — today’s Millennial generation — will ever be able to realize The American Dream. It laid out multiple examples of how the job market, goals, ideals and career paths are substantially different for us up-and-comers compared to those our boomer parents have followed.

Maybe there won’t be as many of us who have access to the traditional pathways toward “success,” but given our boomer-encouraged predisposition to what the Times calls “a persistent optimism” that one day our hard work and education will pay off, I think we will do just fine.

There’s lots of variation, naturally, but many of us are unwilling to settle for meaningless work. Of course, it also helps that many of us have supportive parents, the freedom of not yet having children to care for and the mobility associated with young adulthood. But inspiration and optimism still count for a lot.

My generation may not have a shot at the Boomer American Dream, but we are inspired and optimistic enough to start creating our own.

Annie Scott lives and works in San Diego and sends dispatches back to her beloved Michigan.