The Te of Unemployment

Te (which sounds like day with a really hard d) is the virtue of following the Tao. It's an active effort to cooperate with what life hands you instead of resisting it. The result is a more fluid experience of life with less conflict and greater responsiveness to opportunity. In fact, practicing Te enables you to evoke opportunities from circumstance, as if they were hidden there waiting to be found. Like Easter eggs. 

It's the power by which the Tao creates transformation. When an acorn becomes an oak tree, that's Te. So, to practice Te is to participate in the process of transformation, instead of just being a passenger. You make the most of a situation by bringing out all the potential it contains. 

The Te of Unemployment sounds something like this: "Being out of work brings opportunity you should try not to miss." 

Sure, there are lots of unemployed people, but there's only one unemployed you. In the Tao of Unemployment, you lost your job because it's part of your path. You are the only one walking your path, so the situation is full of opportunity and potential intended just for you. Unemployment and you make a unique combination not repeated anywhere. 

How you deal with it is totally up to you. That's why Te is a virtue—it's something you really should do, no matter how other people react to the same situation. It is uniquely yours no matter how many other instances of it occur. And that's why it's a gift. Something about the experience of unemployment is exactly what it takes to reveal the next phase of your life, which, if you let it, could be incredible. 

So, Te is your part of the equation. You can dive in and learn, or you can resist. Te is diving in. It's how you find and activate the opportunity and potential in your situation. Resistance is anything you do that prevents you from finding those things. Fear, anger, laziness, desperation—feeling these things is normal. To give in to them is to resist the Tao. To explore and learn from them is to practice Te.

What do you want your life to look like over time? Will a new job give that to you? What do you want to be true of you when a new job finally comes along? What thing of value can you get from unemployment that no other experience could give you?

What are the gifts? 

The treasures?

Eventually you will find a new job. But what happens then? The opportunities contained in unemployment will no longer be available to you, and you could miss out on something you really need in order to be happy, job or no job.

Ever forward.

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