Drawing Conclusions

In reviewing my birthday greetings to Douglas Adams, I realize an explanation may be in order. I may have been unclear or, at least, I may have made some faulty assumptions about you, Dear Reader:
1. I assumed you already knew the comic and imaginative genius of Douglas Adams (creator of the radio series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which morphed into a series of novels, plays, comics, and a popular film; also the author of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, which became a TV series).
2.You knew he cared deeply about conservation (hence his fundraising for Save the Rhino and his nonfiction contribution to the cause, Last Chance to See).
3. You know climate change has imperiled polar bears.*

The photo of the polar bear is, in my mind, tragic—and I believe Adams would concur. I didn’t intend any connection between the word laughter and the precarious position of the bear. I hope I didn’t mislead you. I hope I didn’t cause you to laugh at the stranded creature.

Though Adams and his works are immensely quotable, I chose yesterday’s particular quotation because I’ve been awed by ignorance lately—flabbergasted at what people choose to believe about animals, Nature, corporate responsibility, natural resources, poverty, and climate change. I’m waiting for the scales to tip—waiting to be more frequently awed by insightfulness and compassion and intelligence that I may revere and emulate. Of course, it’s occurred to me that I could be waiting several lifetimes for this to happen, so I’ve been researching how best to cultivate understanding—specifically regarding animals—and how I may play my part in the cultivation. This means steeping myself in the mythologies, religions, and cultural practices that threaten understanding.

If you’re already on the front lines of this cause, please tell the rest of us how we may help.

“We are not an endangered species ourselves yet, but this is not for lack of trying.”
―Douglas Adams, in Last Chance to See

* With this on my mind at the library yesterday, I checked out Zac Unger’s Never Look a Polar Bear in the Eye: A Family Field Trip to the Arctic’s Edge in Search of Adventure, Truth, and Mini-Marshmallows. Unger set up residence in Churchill, Manitoba—“The Polar Bear Capital of the World”—to investigate the nature of the bears and the validity of the media reports about their demise. I’ll let you know what he discovers in a future post.

There’s a Place for Us

My mind’s all mushy thanks to this lousy flu bug. I’m afraid Lull will continue to be Lull Lite for a bit longer.

Thought I’d share a song from West Side Story with you today for no particular reason. It’s actually an award-winning ad from Animals Australia.

[The song runs for about two minutes; what follows is educational and unsettling if you’re not familiar with factory farming. Watch at your own risk past 2:18. Or go to Make It Possible if you’d prefer to read instead of watch and find out how you can change the world.]

A Tale of Two Nubbins

If it were a movie, you wouldn’t believe it. This local news story is as uplifting and melodramatic as any Hallmark Hall of Fame program. And it all started with a feisty little dog named Nubbin.

The first half of the tale started on November 28, when Nubbin chased a groundhog and ended up caught in a fence. Nubbin is the only companion of Jessie Brothers, an elderly man who survives on disability with a host of health challenges while residing in a house he may soon lose. According to a neighbor, Brothers has no family (and, may I add, no perceived purpose in life) other than Nubbin.

Somehow Brothers managed to get his Jack Russell to a nearby clinic, where a stark diagnosis would change his life: Nubbin’s leg, broken in three places, would require complicated and extremely expensive surgery. If Brothers couldn’t afford it (and we already know he couldn’t), the only other alternative was to euthanize little Nubbin.

“My dog, my dog,” Brothers moaned as he crumpled in grief to the floor. A 911 call was placed and firemen (as the first responders) arrived on the scene. When one of them, Anthony Johnson, realized the tragedy that had prompted this emergency, he made the unusual choice of getting more deeply involved.

Johnson couldn’t begin to take on all of Brothers’ problems, but he could spare Nubbin’s life by paying for the surgery, and he knew just who to turn to for the best medical care—a veterinarian he’d met during a fire inspection. The vet agreed to take Nubbin’s case as part of an instructional component of his vet students’ classwork. And when an employee of the vet clinic recounted this story to her father, a retired fireman, he offered to pay for half of Nubbin’s medical care.

While Nubbin underwent surgery, Brothers was recovering at the aptly named Good Samaritan Hospital. His neighbor, the one mentioned earlier, picked him up from Good Samaritan and vowed to help him care for Nubbin during the dog’s crucial recuperation period. (If Nubbin’s leg doesn’t heal properly, he might need it amputated.) After surgery, the clinic staff began worrying about Nubbin, though: He seemed depressed, which could impede his healing. But as soon as the pooch caught sight of Brothers, Nubbin regained his vigor. Fireman Anthony Johnson stood by to witness the heartwarming reunion, and gratitude flowed in all directions.

End of story?

Not by a long shot. Across the country in Oklahoma was a woman who had a dream.

On December 1, Carla Kinnard dreamed that she and her husband, Jessie Kinnard, had at last found the biological father he’d spent years searching for online. Thinking the dream might be significant, Carla took one more stab at trying to find Jessie’s father, whom he hadn’t seen since he was a child—a child nicknamed “Nubbin.”

You see where this is going, don’t you? Carla found the news article about Nubbin the dog. Immediately, the cast of characters expanded to include some long-lost and unknown siblings; the plot thickened to reveal a tragic past; the string of coincidences twisted into a brief time years ago when the two Jessies, father and son, actually lived within two blocks of one another. And a reunion of epic proportions was in the making.

But the story still isn’t over. Many questions are yet to be answered: Will Nubbin’s leg have to be amputated? Will the siblings accept one another? Will the old man lose his home?

Time will tell. But no matter how it unfolds, the bond between Nubbin and his companion certainly sparked the compassion of a lot of people and pulled them together, if only for a short time. If not for one little dog, one lonely old man may never have stumbled upon the happiness he experienced when his first Nubbin returned home.

[Photos by Charles Bertram.]

Endnotes: What Lingers from My Reading

This is the beginning of a new series I’ve been noodling on for some time. It’s a compendium of the facts, events, and ideas from my nonfiction reading that I believe deserve a larger audience. For those of you without the time or inclination to read the books from my lists, “Endnotes” will give you an inkling of what stands between the boards.

Considering my current reading theme, the posts will most likely be animal-related. There’s a wealth of information out there that the general public isn’t aware of (and in some cases, even the scientific community isn’t sharing with one another) and should be—about animal behavior, intelligence, emotions, and compassion. What we don’t know can hurt us, and our ignorance most assuredly hurts nonhuman animals.

These posts may or may not include commentary, may or may not be short, may or may not appeal to you. Even so, when you see the word Endnotes in the title, you at least know what lies ahead. And so we begin…


Bad News for Bears

Bears aren’t the only animals who become sobriety-challenged* periodically, but black bears’ benders were noted in Massachusetts one year and the hunting season was put on hiatus until they recovered. Apparently, after gorging on apples, the cider left in the bears’ stomachs fermented and caused the critters to stumble around in a stupor.
—From John McPhee’s Table of Contents

* I realized this morning after reading Sally Roth’s Attracting Songbirds to Your Backyard that I’ve come across downed birds before who had probably had a few too many berries. They looked sick, stunned, in need of help. And then suddenly, as I was anxiously thinking through what to do next, they’d fly off. Silly me: They didn’t require rescue; they just needed to wait out the hangover.


A Different Kind of Dairy Farm


When visitors to Kite’s Nest Farm are invited to try milk from the farm’s dairy cows, people get more than a mouthful. They learn firsthand that cows allowed to live freely and raise their calves naturally produce milk that even lactose-intolerant folks can tolerate, milk that varies in taste according to the breed it came from and according to each animal’s eating and drinking preferences. They learn that dairy farming doesn’t have to be cruel to be profitable.
—From Rosamund Young’s The Secret Life of Cows


A Hippo Driven by Compassion
Separated from her herd, a tiny impala escaped into a nearby African river as a pack of African wild dogs chased her. They ceased their hunt at the water’s edge, though, for they were outmatched by a formidable predator the young impala hadn’t noticed: a crocodile.

Nearby, another creature was watching as the drama unfolded, and though she was no enemy to crocs, she took action when the reptile grabbed the impala in his vise-like jaws. The hippo charged the croc, which likely astonished him more than roughed him up, and his prey flew out of his mouth.

The hippo nudged her rescue out of the water and the baby struggled to move to firmer ground. The hippo stood over the impala, slowly and repeatedly blowing air into the little one’s airways and across her body, trying to strengthen and warm her. But the croc had been too much for the babe. In spite of the hippo’s efforts, the impala perished.

Why is this anecdote important? Typically this kind of cross-species compassion in the wild is not believed or is rationalized or ignored altogether by the scientific community. However, this particular event—showing not only compassion, but swift decision-making and noninstinctive behavior—was caught on film. Similar events may happen in the wild far more frequently than we’re aware of.
—From Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson’s Dogs Have the Strangest Friends

[Bear photo by Jim Blackwood; cows photo by Rosamund Young; impala photo by Rebecca Conroy.]

Compassionate Governance

Before we go to the polls on Tuesday, it may do well to consider the words of a long-ago politician of character:
 

“It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life—the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey

[Photo by Chalmers Butterfield.]

When Abandonment Is Just the Beginning

Some animal shelters have drop-off areas where people may leave/“surrender” their pets anonymously, thereby transferring responsibility of the animals’ care to the shelter. This practice is not unlike the city ordinances allowing people to drop off babies at fire stations and hospitals. As much as we hate providing for such circumstances, it’s loads better than the alternative: abandonment.

I’ve heard one report after another of animals abandoned here in the Bluegrass: the dogs thrown out of cars, the puppies hidden in a dog-food bag along a road, the pregnant ponies dumped in a field, the animals left in foreclosed homes. You get the picture. Earlier this year, two hikers discovered just how far some people will go to get rid of a pet.

In the White Mountains of New England, on a stretch of wilderness travelled only by experienced purists, the hikers noticed a large box. Before they had enough time to puzzle through how and why it was there, it moved! Cautiously, they peeked inside. Staring back at them was a small, unkempt, sickly, senior dog.

Whoever left him there had taken great pains to position him where he wouldn’t be found, in an area from which he wouldn’t likely escape. But in all the person’s strategizing, s/he apparently didn’t consider how the kindness of a couple of strangers can snowball.

The hikers believed the dog would be bear bait if left on the mountainside. So they agreed to carry him to the nearest town and find a shelter that could help him.

“A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees.”
—Amelia Earhart

The shelter staff dubbed the little fellow “Scruffy” and told his story on their Facebook page, where author Tom Ryan saw it. Scruffy needed expensive medical treatment that Ryan knew the shelter could hardly afford. Since he had once benefitted from the kindness of strangers himself—or, rather, his dog had—Ryan spread the word about Scruffy’s predicament on his own Facebook page. From across the country, fans of his book, Following Atticus, quickly covered the costs for the patient. Better yet, a local couple adopted Scruffy.

Then, when a happy ending seemed on the horizon, Scruffy’s health took a dive. Once more, Ryan rallied his readers to the cause and again they came through. What’s more, the vet staff was so impressed by the number of people pulling for Scruffy that they kept their fees to a minimum—a blessing for the young couple who had adopted the forsaken pooch, never expecting the roller-coaster of worry and fear and hope he would also cost them.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because today, Scruffy is healthy and home. His journey from mountaintop abandonment to a loving family is a reminder that sometimes it really does take a village. Sometimes, it takes the kindness of many strangers to change the direction of one small life.

Was it worth it? Heck, yeah! Whenever we act together in kindness, we improve our world—if only by a tiny, furry bit.

[Photo of Davis Path by Tom Pirro; photo of Scruffy by one of his adoptive guardians, Corey Engfer.]

Just When I Thought Compassionate Humans Were An Endangered Species…

We attended a festival last weekend at which we noticed an odd sight. Between the tents of the vendors and the picnic tables near the food purveyors was a ring of opened folding chairs, roped together and lying on their sides. My curiosity got the best of me and I stepped up to the ring for a closer look.

In the center of the chairs was a Killdeer. At first I thought she was injured, but then I saw her clutch of speckled eggs, camouflaged nicely amongst the surrounding stones. It seemed a risky place to raise a family—in an open area of a frequently used park—but apparently this is typical Killdeer strategy.

We watched the bird from afar for a while—saw her perform her “Predator Distraction Dance” when she felt threatened and saw her mate swoop in to deliver food. We also heard numerous parents warn their children to keep their distance and not traumatize the bird, and we overheard a festival exhibitor explain how she and a few other exhibitors had first noticed the bird that morning and decided to protect the tiny family from the crowds by creating the wall of chairs.

This contrasted sharply with the last Killdeer-human interactions I’d witnessed at the Rolex Event last month: As a Killdeer was trying to herd her large brood across a triangular patch of grass with people milling about on all sides, one person allowed her dog to chase the chicks. They scattered in all directions, sending Mother Killdeer into a frenzy.

I know, I know. It’s fun for the canine. But not so much for the Killdeer.

So last weekend became memorable not for the festival, but for seeing SO MANY humans doing the right thing for one little bird and her potential family. They made my day.

Beyond the Divide

Compassion
by Miller Williams, from The Ways We Touch: Poems

Have compassion for everyone you meet
even if they don’t want it. What seems conceit,
bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign
of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on
down there where the spirit meets the bone.

[Photograph by Gordon Parks.]

Compassion: Yet Another Endangered Species?

I’ve been reading Ian Parker’s “The Story of a Suicide: Two College Roommates, a Webcam, and a Tragedy,” a New Yorker article about the Rutgers freshman who jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge, leading strangers to jump to conclusions about his motivation. The author includes numerous e-mails and text messages that the players in this drama exchanged, and I was struck again and again by a common theme in their banter: compassion. Or, rather, a lack of it.

I realize these exchanges were private and written in techno-haste by kids who easily fall prey to the rhythm of peer-bashing—us vs. them. But words impart meaning and if used repeatedly, become a kind of truth. Homosexuals weren’t their only target. The kids expressed disdain for violinists, computer illiterates, people of inferior intelligence, people who don’t have Gmail addresses, and, most especially, poor people.

Poor people?

I thought I knew what I was up against in my mission to generate compassion for animals from the general population. But this New Yorker article indicated a societal mindset foreign to me.

As I related my concern to my husband, he found “What, Me Care? Young Are Less Empathetic” by Jamil Zaki. It’s a summary in Scientific American of long-term studies conducted on empathy in humans—how we apply it and how we think about it. In the U.S. college population, empathy has been on the decline in the last decade.

After watching the Super Bowl ads and halftime show this past weekend, I can understand why. It seems as if harshness and snarkiness and loudness are easy to come by in the media; for softness and kindness and quiet, we have to actively search for examples. All too often, most of us take whatever comes to us. I thought this indicated that our emotional world is out of balance with our multimedia world, especially for younger generations. For compassion to gain importance, we simply have to try harder to achieve equilibrium.

Then I read the comments to the Scientific American article. Here’s one that stands out:

“Perhaps low empathy levels could be improved if people were given the time and space to find each other interesting. … If it were somehow necessary for people to depend on the kindness of strangers, they might find reasons to care about them.”

Ah, it all makes sense now. If poor people could just be more interesting, they might rouse compassion from others. Poor people (like exploited animals) vie for our attention in the same media muddle as do displays of glamour, sexuality, affluence, athleticism, and trendiness. Is this a level playing field? How can we make society’s invisible more interesting?

I was about to give up on humans until I read this in Poetry magazine:

“If I can only be horrified by my species, then I will have to kill myself. If I find others recognizable, I guess I will continue. It’s as simple as that.”
—Fanny Howe

I guess it is as simple as that. I must do what I can as I can. I urge you to do the same.

Sidenote
One difference between empathic individuals (children and adults) and those with little compassion: Those who read more fiction have more empathy.

[Pics from top to bottom from Dog Files, Have Dog Blog Will Travel, and Dog Eat Dogma.]

Sociopaths and Sandhill Cranes

Sorting the Defective Brains from the Poorly Operated Ones

One of the horse bloggers I check in with periodically is starting an online reading group: WHOAprah Whinny’s Book Club. The blogger is pushing for the inaugural book to be The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout. Her reasoning: She wants to understand horse abusers.

After scanning the reader reviews on Amazon.com, I may actually read Stout’s book. Not only does she identify the conscienceless and describe typical interactions we may have with them, she instructs readers in how to navigate these interactions.

Wish the book had been around in the previous century. Years ago my husband and I had only M. Scott Peck’s People of the Lie: The Hope For Healing Human Evil to turn to. We were trying to understand the odd behavior of a theatre director. The book described this guy to a T and labeled him “evil.” Though it was a relief to read about our problem, it didn’t help us handle our problem. I suspect The Sociopath Next Door could also have helped us deal with Mr. Slimy, our nasty landlord in the Windy City (or any of the other psycho landlords we cycled through there). As for the horse blogger’s desire to understand horse abusers through this book, though, I’m not sure how enlightening it will be.

The Sociopath Next Door examines only one end of the spectrum—the folks whose brains are clearly physiologically without conscience. What the book probably doesn’t explain are the motivations driving the millions of other a _ _ holes out there who simply aren’t engaging their consciences. The folks who capably exhibit sympathy or empathy or compassion in some situations yet not in others.

A character in The Last Detective television series said: “Really decent people have a tendency to bring out the worst in the rest of us.” Could it really be that simple? Sometimes it is. I’ve seen it played out in the workplace.

The only way in which I can relate to this phenomenon is when one element of my personality is brought front and center by some opposing personality. For instance, an extroverted, authoritative personality (i.e., “bossy”) will meet a mute me; a timid, uncertain personality will be drawn out by an encouraging, courageous me. Both are elements of my personality, but they usually act in harmony with all the other elements. They don’t go solo except when provoked under certain circumstances. When this happens, I feel as if I’ve been taken hostage. Maybe it’s the same for some people when they run up against goodness. They can’t help it: Their antigoodness element gets switched into high gear and before they know it, they’ve said or done something despicable.

In the case of bullies, perceived inferiority, lack of intelligence, or weakness may trigger their nasty behavior. Unfortunately, animals fall into all three of those categories (not in reality; just in perception). And bullies aren’t the only ones classifying animals this way.

I’ve been watching Buck, the documentary film about Buck Brannaman’s gentle approach to starting and training horses. Brannaman endured years of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of his father, and so seems to be able to understand the hypersensitive nature of horses. Yet, in one segment of the film, he treats cattle as if they were simply obstinate moving objects.* Which is pretty much how most animals deemed “livestock” get treated. Even horses fall into this category in some folks’ minds (see “Do Horses Live in the Moment” on Grey Horse Matters). It bothers me that Brannaman, who has so much empathy for horses, can traumatize calves and their mothers without a second thought.

I’m not saying Brannaman abuses the cattle. But he doesn’t offer them the same respect he shows for horses. Not all animals are equal.

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn

I don’t believe all animal abusers are completely without conscience. If that were true, then the number of sociopaths in our midst would be much higher than the 1% to 5% range researchers currently report. However, I do believe these people are deeply flawed. At least, their thinking is.

This subject has been top of mind for me recently because I’ve been invited to attend Kentucky’s upcoming Humane Lobby Day. Animal welfare advocates from all counties gather in the state capital and meet with politicians to press for change. Not long ago, the Bluegrass State fell dead last in the Humane Society’s state rankings on animal welfare. The low score was achieved by having few laws on the books to prosecute animal abusers in a meaningful way.

Certainly, laws are important in this battle, but once you have a law in place, you have to enforce it. And more than that (and this is the crux of the matter), people (residents, cops, lawyers, judges, etc.) have to comprehend the laws and understand the necessity for the laws, which requires a certain mindset regarding animals. While my peers push for new and stronger laws to be enacted, I will be pushing for this mindset to be instilled in Kentuckians. I’ve come to this decision, oddly enough, because of Sandhill Cranes…

to be continued

* I still recommend the film. The methods Brannaman uses with horses and the results he achieves are worth emulating.

[Top pic is Abbie, rescued from a “horse breeder” by Catskill Animal Sanctuary.]

Truth Omitted for an “Aw” Moment

I have a soft spot for Great Danes. And when I read about a Dane (Maddison) who, without being asked and without being trained, took on the responsibility of acting as Guide Dog to her blind friend (Lily), I had to share these photos with you. I wanted to talk about Compassion Footprints—ours and animals’.


However, when I started digging into the story, I found many disturbing details (e.g., the dogs came from a notorious puppy mill breeder—hence, my guess, the blindness, the dogs’ relationship unraveled in their new home). I’ll post links below and you can read the articles yourself—if you want.

This is not the first time I’ve chosen a topic/photo only to have it twist in a distasteful direction. Typically, I’ll find a photo for Lull and then discover that the subject has died (as in the case of Atlas). And, typically, I abandon the topic/photo and create a different post for Lull. When the point of a photo is to lift your spirits, I don’t want the text to bring you down with the backstory.


But no more. From now on, I’m sticking my ostrich head in the sand, thankyouverymuch. Bad backstory or not, for as long as it lasted, the relationship between these two Danes is worth viewing and pondering. Story not required.

Daily Mail on dogs needing a new home

Global Post on dogs finding a new home

Dogs Trust’s FAQ on separation of dogs

Breeder info on the Great Dane Owners Forum

Stupidity Goes Bipartisan on Horse Slaughter Legislation

Here’s a brief roundup of brilliance from U.S. politicians. I’ll post my rebuttal soon.


“We wanted to allow horse slaughter again in America because of an unanticipated problem with horse neglect and abandonment.”
—Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Georgia

Horse owners in Cole’s district are “pretty unanimous that they want the means to deal with an excess population.”
—Rep. Tom Cole, R-Oklahoma

The federal horse-slaughter ban devastated “an entire sector of animal agriculture for purely sentimental and romantic notions.”
—Rep. Sue Wallis, R-Wyoming

“In Montana, we’ve seen some sad cases of horse abandonment and neglect as owners struggle in this tough economy. Now we can fight to revive the jobs shipped to Canada and Mexico as a result of this ban along with making sure injured and sick horses are not abandoned or subject to inhumane treatment.”
—Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana

It Takes Heart to Be a Leader

Nearly anyone can become a manager, but to be a true leader you must have compassion.

I was reminded of this last evening when I ran into a “dog acquaintance.” He immediately asked where our pooch was and we told him our tragic news.

He’s a teacher in a private elementary school and just that day his principal had commented to him, “Can you believe it? [A teacher] called in this morning to ask for the day off because her pet died.”

My friend said, Yes, he could believe it because he’d do the same. “If my dog dies, you won’t want me at work that day.”

This is the kind of scenario we brought up in the newsletters I used to oversee. We counseled readers on the soft skills of leadership—that is, the skills required to deal with and coexist with people in a workplace setting. An astonishing number of people in supervisory positions need to be reminded or taught that sensitivity is a critical element to earning trust and loyalty from employees.

The principal is a key example. Not only does he reveal his lack of compassion to another employee, he also reveals his lack of knowledge about the marketplace. Pets are a $45.5 billion industry and growing. Pets affect how people shop for cars, homes, landscaping, and jobs. A little awareness of how serious this bond is could go a long way with his staff.

The principal doesn’t even need to be an animal lover to show his compassion to the teacher. Surely he can draw on his own experience of loss to understand this employee’s emotional state. But if that’s not the case, then his responsibility as a leader is to first see the situation from the perspective of the employee before taking action. The principal had no excuse for discussing the issue with other employees, but that’s a separate matter deserving of its own post.

Bereavement policies are tricky ones to draw up. They’re a positive benefit for employers to offer, but they will no doubt fall short of many employees’ needs. These policies usually cover only immediate family members. Yet the loss of a best friend or animal companion may have a far greater impact on some employees than the loss of a sibling or parent. Without a policy to cover these circumstances, a manager’s response is not only personal but also—from the employee’s viewpoint—embodies the organization’s stand on the subject.

Funny, isn’t it? What some folks read newsletters to learn, my pooch had innately in spades.

[Art by Jim Dine.]

We Could All Use A Little “Circular Helping”

We no longer purchase the Chicago Tribune. This is due in part to its cost and our cost-cutting, but it’s also a result of the downsizing of the paper—both in dimensions and in content. Periodically I pick up the Tribune’s free outreach rag geared toward Millennials. My husband enjoys scanning it and then adding it to our growing stack of papers intended for use in our pending move.

One of these free papers was lying about the other day and I leafed through it. In the blog column roundup was a recruiter’s comment to “Get a Job in Chicago: 10 Tips from Local Recruiters,” an article and slide show posted by Katie Rogers on her BrokeAss blog. Here’s the tip:

Stay positive.
“We all want the job market to improve. We are all a bit beaten down by the economy. But the people who only look forward and bring a positive attitude will outshine those who have grown frustrated and jaded.”

Okay. I can agree with that. But here’s how the recruiter responds:

“As a recruiter I could not agree more with the statement of ‘Staying positive.’ All too often I interview people or read resumes about people’s poor luck recently. Yes, we all experience hard times, but if you cannot stay positive during a tough time then how would you handle a difficult situation/customer if I were to place you in the job itself?”

Excuse me? Since when did handling a tough customer or situation in the workplace become equivalent to worrying about whether you’re going to be able to keep a roof over your head and looking a bit glum about it? Are interviews going to start including questions about our survival skills during the First Great Recession of the 21st Century? Do you ever hear a “poor luck” tale and feel a twinge of compassion?

I believe this recruiter meant well. She provides three more tips for the job-hunter in her comments and closes with this paragraph:

“I hope this helps, and I interview people all day long, so if anyone every needs tips please let me know :)”

(Note: I didn’t retype that. Nor did I add the emoticon, which is what leads me to believe she meant well.)

In a wonderfully synchronous moment, I opened management expert Dale Dauten’s Laughing Warriors: How to Enjoy Killing the Status Quo to this wisdom:

“Hiring is circular helping—the goal is to find the person who will contribute the most AND benefit the most.”

The caps are Dauten’s. The idea is golden. Of course it’s unwise to hire people only because you feel sorry for them. But if they really could be of value to your organization and they will benefit from your job offer, isn’t that a best-case scenario? The cliché Win-Win?

Turning "Unemployed" into "Unencumbered"

In my search for evidence to prove to the eviction court that I'm not a deadbeat tenant, I stumbled upon Richard John Neuhaus' essay "Born Toward Dying." I initially read it with an eye toward helping my neighbor mourn her husband's unexpected death. And I was struck by this quote about grief:

"The worst thing is not the sorrow or the loss or the heartbreak. Worse is to be encountered by death and not to be changed by the encounter."

With a few word substitutions, the notion easily applies to the jobless:

"The worst thing is not the anger or the degradation or the sorrow. Worse is to be encountered by loss and not to be changed by the encounter."

For many of us, unemployment catapults our brains into high gear. Swirls of negative and sickening thoughts dominate prime real estate in our gray matter—like that wild teacup ride in amusement parks, with a new thought at every twist. Except that this teacup ride never makes us smile.

It's up to us to control the ride, though. And that demands some introspection. To make this stretch of jobless time valuable, we must examine ourselves and our perceptions:

What view are we afforded of the world from this level?

How does it differ from our employed view?

How fulfilling was our worklife? Do we want to replicate that?

How many different futures can we imagine for ourselves?

Some of us were so focused on our previous jobs and responsibilities that we lost sight of who we are outside of the workday. Being relieved of those responsibilities gives us an opportunity to connect with what's left. Or what's been shoved aside for years.

Job loss also gives us an opportunity to heighten our awareness and compassion for those less fortunate. To count our blessings while counting our pennies. To see our circumstances from yet another point of view.

Allow unemployment to change more than the number of shoes in your closet, or the balance of your checking account, or the busyness of your social calendar.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not pressing anyone to plaster on a faux smile and grab any old silver lining.

Unemployment sucks; why pretend otherwise?

Nonetheless, we must stretch ourselves to make this loss meaningful. By plumbing the depths of our circumstances, we can expand our humility, compassion, and wisdom. We can build character as well as resumes.