Depressed About Your Unemployment?

7 Simple Ways to Crawl Out From Under Your Rock


None of these things will help you get a job. These are things that will help you feel more like a human for a little while. They may seem simple, but they are very important if you want to remember that there is more going in your life than you can see from your current point of view.*

If all of these things seem obvious and silly to you, you do not need to read this, because you do not currently live under a rock. You should go have a Starbucks or buy things on Etsy, or do other happy things. Others, please proceed.

1. Remove the bottle of wine/whiskey/tequila from your bedside table. It's just not healthy.

2. Take a weed whacker to your leg hair and put on a skirt. Alternatively, weed whack that scruff from your chin and put on a clean shirt. Whichever applies to your current situation (maybe both? maybe all?), it will make you feel like a person for a little while. (Seriously dude. You look like a Fraggle. Remember Fraggles?)

3. Respond to emails from friends that are more than two days old. It's not their fault no one will hire you...unless they voted for Bush at any time. In that case, instead of returning their emails, sign those people up for home-delivered "special offers" that you can find on the internet. They will appreciate your thinking of them.

4. No, really. Talk to your friends. Talk to your family. They don't think you are a suck-ass useless piece of crap, or they wouldn't keep emailing you and wondering if you died. Call them up even if they haven't emailed or called. Human contact. You need it. Don't be a jerk to them when they tell you about their job woes. You can cry into your pillow later.
(Yes, Steph. If I didn't actually answer your question yet, Friend's Thanksgiving should happen again this year.)

5. Make something. Make something new for dinner. Bake banana bread. Draw a picture. Knit something. Build something. Make something in your house prettier, more efficient, or different in some way. Produce something that you can eat, see, touch or use. Then shake your fist at the sky and yell, "I AM A PRODUCTIVE PERSON, DAMMIT! YOU JERK-BAGS ARE MISSING OUT ON ALL OF THIS! THIS IS YOUR LOSS! YOURS!" (Do the fist-shaking thing. Do It. Then, gesture to yourself suggestively. Freak out the neighbors. What have you got to lose?)

6. Close the computer. You can look for today's phantom job postings tomorrow. Also, doing something on Farmville/Mafia Wars/WOW/Second Life is not the same as doing something.

7. Go outside. Do some yard work. Go for a walk. Take your kid to the park, or go by yourself. Get some Vitamin D. "Pasty and haggard" isn't really a good look for you.

8. Do something you want to do. Even if it costs money. Okay, not too much money-I'm talking about scrounging up enough change from your sofa to get a couple of donuts, not putting a new computer on a charge card. Unless you won't be able to feed yourself this week because of it, get a coffee and sit in the bookstore, or take a bus to the library. Rent a movie. Go to a movie. You don't somehow deserve financial ruin because you treat yourself to something small (small!) once a week.

*My current point of view=under the rock, up my own ass, curled up under the covers with my hands over my ears. Attempting to alleviate the situation...now.

Yeah, I'm using my blog to give myself pep talks. So what??