I blame tuna fish!

My first day of my week of being gainfully unemployed... hmmm... what to do, what to do. So far today, I've gotten my mail, eaten some pasta, taken a shower, and sent a text message... not necessarily in that order. I think I might eventually get really motivated and make it to the couch for a few hours of Playstation. I know, it's tough not to stop reading now... the raw, unfiltered excitement of my life grabs your attention like a runaway train full of puppies and lollipops, but I'll try to bring it down a bit.

I re-read my last post just a few minutes ago, and someone had posted a comment. It said that "wisdom is revealed through actions, not words." I think I like that.... a little too Confucious-esque for my tastes, but I do like the point that this person's making. Not in the jaded, cynical, sarcastic way that I would typically respond to something; if you know me, you know that I would typically rip any post that remotely disagreed with whatever rant of midless babble that I throw up on this thing... but I thought that was well put. I'm going to write that again. "Wisdom is revealed through actions, not words." I think that's very well said... kind of like when you learn something through lecture (I'm thinking a classroom setting here), I don't think you really retain it until you can put it to practical use. I think that's why I always did well in math... the teacher would tell me/us/the class how to do something, demonstrate it, and then have us work out some problems on our own. Now granted, I hated pretty much every math teacher that I ever had, but I actually did learn a few things. My sterling GPA should reflect that. Ever notice that it's really hard to express sarcasm in print, by the way?

Seriously, though... enough of the complimentary monologue praising someone else's comment, I'm going to babble a little more on my own thoughts.

There is one thing that's bumming me out today... I have virtually nothing to do. I guess that's the price you pay for having friends that are actually employed. Yes, I know that I've been unemployed for exactly a day, but I'm going stir crazy here. Voluntary unemployment... never thought I'd see the day. When I got laid off from a former job, it was kind of a blessing... beginning of summer, the company isn't doing well... yada, yada, yada, but quite honestly, I felt like such a loser. To have a company tell you that your services are no longer required makes you feel like such a chump. The worst part of it wasn't that I was no longer working... it was more that when I would meet someone and they would ask me what I do, my standard response was, "nothing." I would then have to say, "I just got laid off... my position was eliminated."

Why is it that everyone, myself included, feels the need to justify and qualify anything that's not going well? Why can't we just say something like, "I'm not working," instead of, "well, I'm not working because my position was eliminated because the company is poorly run and because my boss was a moron"? I think it's much more satisfying if you take accountability for putting yourself in that situation. I'm not real big on excuses because I think that you really have to assume responsibilty for whatever actions or decisions you take/make. This is the reason I have a hard time with that, "everything happens for a reason" philosophy. If everything happens for a reason, that gives me the idea that I'm not in control... that no matter what I do, whatever happens was therefore, supposed to happen. Now, this may seem fairly elementary, that you should be accountable, but think about it. How many times has some moron at work done something that screwed over a bunch of people, delayed a deal, added time to a project, forgot to set the timer on the fries, and then proceeded to spray a virtual deluge of excuses on why he didn't do whatever it was that he was supposed to do. This pisses me off.

I touched on this before, but in my old office (the job I just left), there are people in there that blame everything, everyone and anything for why they're not successful in their chosen profession. "Oh, the economy's bad and no one has any money." "I can't even say 'hi' without them saying that they're not interested in whatever I'm selling." "This is a horrible time of year to try to sell anything." What-f'ing-ever, people. I don't mean to sound like some sort of sales nazi, but, for crying out loud, you've been doing this for 3 months now, coming in every day claiming that you have 12 appointments for the week, and not selling a single f'ing thing. Take some responsibility. Maybe you could have done some things differently. Maybe you should shave off that fledgling pseuso-rock-star-half-goatee thing off your chin. Or maybe, just maybe, you should just accept that this thing isn't for you. There's no shame in that... we all make bad decisions. I, for one, am guilty of that sin many times over.

The point that I'm making here is to just be accountable. Don't blame your mother for you not being able to commit to a relationship. Don't blame your neighbor for you staying up until 4AM drinking tequila and then having a five alarm hangover the next day and being worthless at work (I would never, ever do anything like that). And, lastly, don't blame a stupid fundraising company for you breaking your hand because they sent you 1,750 lbs. of sample material that you tried to move out of your two bedroom apartment and then puched one of the boxes that you thought was empty (again, I would never, ever in a million years do something like that). That's just silly.

So that's the rant for today. I apologize if it's a little "holier than thou," but again, this is my blog, and I'll have a God complex if I want it... at least just for today. So there.

Gotta run, that game of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas isn't going to save itself.

Until whenever...

R