Third World America - Arianna Huffington [80]
Lesa draws inspiration from her mother, who divorced in 1964 with four daughters under the age of seven. “Every day I saw this magnificent woman with a college degree do everything from taking in sewing to working at a canning factory. She used to say: ‘How do you clean up the house? Well, you pick up one thing and put it away. You pick up another thing and put it away. You do that again and again and soon your house is clean.’ The same thing is true in business. We get so scared and we sit there, bummed out. You have to look up and say, even if I do something very, very small, I’m going to keep plugging along and accomplish something today!”
FINDING THE SILVER LINING
“When you are helping others, you are helping yourself.” It’s amazing, when hearing stories of resilience, how often that sentiment pops up.
It’s an unexpected twist: Taking the one thing you have an abundance of when you are out of work—time—and using it to help others turns out to be remarkably empowering and energizing. Moving beyond a sense of helplessness to make a difference in the lives of others—whether working at a food bank, delivering meals to seniors, or mentoring a child—can transform our experience of even the most stressful times. The consequences of being jobless are not just economic—they’re also psychological. And the psychic toll is greatly lessened by taking a look outside ourselves and finding ways to serve others even less fortunate. It can bring both perspective and meaning to our lives. Plus, evidence shows that when we look outward, reach out, and connect—especially in times of trouble—good things follow.
Take the case of Annette Arca, a Las Vegas commercial real estate professional.112 After she lost her job, she began to spend some of her newfound free time volunteering in her community. Even though she couldn’t afford to make the payments on her town house, she figured there were still people in worse situations who needed help, so she set aside a chunk of hours each week to help deliver lunches to medical centers and work with homeless families. “It’s a great opportunity to get involved, to help other people,” she told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. But volunteering also lent Arca a sense of purpose and positive outlook that complemented her job search. “If I’m negative, nothing’s ever going to happen for me,” she said.
Then there’s Seth Reams, who lost his job as a concierge in December 2008.113 He took an energetic approach to his job hunt, circulating his résumé to more than three hundred potential employers. But when he got no bites, Reams told KOMO Newsradio in Seattle, he felt useless, “like I wasn’t a member of society anymore, like I wasn’t contributing to [my] household anymore.” Frustrated, he and his girlfriend, Michelle King, who worked as an assistant administrator analyst at a health insurance company, brainstormed ways for him to stay productive during his job search. Together, they came up with We’ve Got Time to Help, an online platform for locals who have extra time—generally people who were laid off—and want to contribute to the community in Portland, Oregon, where Reams and King live. For the blog’s first project, Reams helped a single pregnant woman, who also cared for her three siblings, move furniture into her home. More projects soon followed: painting a room in a battered-women’s shelter, teaching refugees how to drive, helping a needy family repair the roof on their home.114 Within sixteen months of the site’s launch in January 2009, We’ve Got Time to Help assembled more than a hundred volunteers, who’ve assisted hundreds of struggling locals.
“People call us with