Empathizing With Charlie Brown this Thanksgiving

It was an unusual Thanksgiving this year, a quiet small gathering with my family. Thanksgiving happened to be nine months to the day since I was laid off from my job of 26 years at IBM, which made it a little more solemn than past holidays. During those nine months I’ve had a total of seven face-to-face interviews, but still no job. I never expected to be out of work this long – with so much experience I was sure I’d have no trouble finding suitable work. I’ve come to realize that the work I did at IBM was somewhat specialized and there’s a limited market for it outside of the company. This means I’ve had to put some effort into reinventing myself to some extent. The number of opportunities that I’ve missed has also been on my mind. When the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special came on in the evening, I found myself really empathizing and identifying with his character and all the frustrations he experiences in his life - more than at any time in my past.

It recently occurred to me that I've spent most of my time these past months trying to get a full time job and rejoin “corporate America”. It often seems as if fate has been conspiring to keep me out of “corporate America” though, as if I was destined to enter a different line of work. What that could be is something I’m spending more time thinking about now.

Back to Charlie Brown. Besides the regular Thanksgiving show, there was also a great little TV show staring the Peanuts characters about the history of the Pilgrims and their voyage on the Mayflower to North America. Although meant for younger kids, the show describes in some detail the hardships faced by those early settlers, culminating in the first Thanksgiving celebration with the local Indians. It was a useful reminder of how lucky I’ve been in comparison. During their first winter in North America, about half the Pilgrims died. By comparison, I have plenty of food on the table, a warm house, a healthy wife and kids, good health care, a promising future, and a great support community. Compared to many of the unemployed people in the world today, I have much to be grateful for.