journal features

four Novembers without work

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2003.11.04

It occurred to me today, as I waited in line at the federal government's Human Resources department's office, that this is my fourth November in a row that I've faced without a job. While in 2000 it was voluntary (as I was traveling in Australia), the last three have been due to the (literally) perennially slow IT market. Four in a row!

Note, 2020.02.01 Don't worry young Michael, you have a good run coming. In a year you'll be working. In Halifax! Then you'll have employment in Japan for three Novembers, then self-employment for one, then you'll work in Toronto for nine Novembers. And then OK one more unemployed but that's a ways off.

rand()m quote

Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.

—John Gardner