During this time of “shelter-in-place” and forced unemployment, why not take advantage and reflect upon your skills? And, prepare a résumé? Start sending them out, because this will end, and you’ll want to “hit-the-ground-running”. This is a great opportunity to reflect and refocus. Trust me.
Phases and stages
of life (according to me; and this will make sense later) can be reduced to four. They are:
- The Formative years, from zero to twenty, plus or minus depending.
- The Reproductive years, from twenty to forty.
- The Creative years, from forty to sixty.
- The Dying years, from sixty to eighty. (And beyond, depending …)
[ FRCD. Or, in other words, forced by biology, etc. and so on.]
Below, I’ll use my life (because that’s all I really know) as an example. Granted, my life is atypical – but isn’t everyone’s? In that your experience is only ever experienced by you. However, “we” do use averages of groups of people to make assumptions. Lest we be overwhelmed. [Who has time for that?]
So here’s my résumé of skills, reduced to the four phases and stages of life. (In order of skills acquired. So far.)
The Formative years (0-20):
- Civility & manners
- K-12 education
- Photography
- Camping and fishing
The Reproductive years (20-40):
- Solo living
- Bussing tables
- Personell management
- Bartending
- Marriage
- Lumberjacking
- Carpentry
- Gardening
- Design & building
- Parenting & step-parenting
- Cabinetmaking
- Retail management & bookkeeping
The Creative years (40-60):
- Divorce mitigation
- Landscaping & waterfall building
- Advanced education
- Learning, writing, & thinking
- Synthesis of analysis & collaborative processing
- Mathematical modes of thought
- Skills of helping
- Counseling of children
- Medication administration
- Therapeutic crisis intervention
- Bookselling & small business management
- Writing, publishing books, blogging, & social media management
The Dying years (60-80+):
- Classroom teaching, scheduling, & management
- Solo living
- Psychotherapy
And now so here we are
and what are you going to do?
What am I going to do? Live my life as I’ve always done is the glib answer.
However, some things change and some don’t.
I think I’ll stop here and reflect before I write more …
Be well.
