Unemployment, skills, & the résumé

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:

1. The Formative years, from zero to twenty, plus or minus depending.
2. The Reproductive years, from twenty to forty.
3. The Creative years, from forty to sixty.
4. 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.