Be All You Can Be

I'm reading a work of fiction, published in 1995, by a popular novelist. I'm not really enjoying it, but it has made me think about how different life was pre-9/11.

The main character wanders from the beach in her swimsuit one day—where she was on a vacation with her extended family—and hitchhikes to a small American town where she's never been and knows no one. She purchases a dress on the town square, rents a room at a boarding house, and hears from the boarding house proprietor that the woman who previously lived there left behind a secretarial job down the street. Our main character promptly heads over to the law office and announces she intends to fill the vacancy.

She starts work the next day for minimum wage. (Was it really that easy 15 years ago to walk out of one life and into another? To step into a job without first showing a résumé, providing 3 references, and filling out 5 pages of application questions?) She notices that her new self doesn't smile so much, dresses more severely, seems less warm and easy-going. She passes no judgment on this.

But we can.

There's a lot of chatter out there about the unemployed reinventing themselves—follow our dreams, do what we love, do something else, be someone else. This fictional character reminds me that we have to remain in control of the metamorphosis. To let it happen without our participation and guidance is to watch ourselves become people we may not want to be.

[Pictured is a Revenge of the Fallen Transformer toy. I don't know what the movie of the same name is about. I prefer to think of the "Fallen" as the Jobless, rising to glorious new heights, armed with whatever it takes to beat unemployment this year, colorfully noticeable. We may have been down, but we're not done, baby.]