When discouragement happens

You’ve seen the bumper sticker–”Discouragement Happens.”

Or something like that. Well, anyway, it does. If you’re trapped in a hateful job situation or in unemployment, it’s going to happen. Don’t kid yourself. Be prepared and forearmed for that patch of bumpy road.

Maybe you wake up one morning and your mojo has called in sick. You really want to get your groove back, but it’s left no forwarding address. You know there are some things you need to be doing, but somehow right now eating dirt seems a more attractive option.

Say you need to call a certain individual about a job opportunity, but you’re frozen. It’s a problem sometimes referred to as the “100-pound telephone” and the “20-pound tongue.” Right now, it’s just not going to happen.

Or say you’re a wounded healer who operates a Web site to help other jobless folks–who don’t visit your site and don’t buy your book. It’s very hard to fill another person’s cup when your own has gone bone dry. You hit the wall. (Has it really been two weeks since my last post?)

There can be a variety of triggers. There’s the cumulative stress and fatigue of long-term unemployment, for one. Several years ago I experienced a catastrophic energy drain in West Africa, where after just a few days the heat and humidity reduced me to a zombie-like state of total torpor. It was almost too much effort to move, despite the work that needed to be done.

Or it might be an acute situation–like the sudden realization that the reason job opportunities keep slipping through your fingers at the interview stage has far less to do with your interviewing skills than it does the fact that you’re an Older Worker. The blood in your gut turns to ice with the realization that at your age that layoff was the Kiss of Death. There may not be another chance.

OK. This is, yes, semi-autobiographical. If you’re walking a valley like that now, I’m right there with you. The question is what do we do with it? Of course, we trust God for His provision. That goes without saying.

But after nearly a year and half of that, I am reaching the stage of enervation and discouragement. That’s just being honest and realistic. I don’t want to reach the point psychologically that I experienced physiologically in West Africa. By then it’s too late.

Here’s what I’m considering: Naming names. I have alluded to the age discrimination I experienced at the hands of my last employer, but I have not named them. I have alluded to age discrimination on the part of prospective employers who lose interest in me after I show up for the interview with gray hair. But I have not named them.

This may change. My wife disagrees. She says that’s too much negative energy, too little faith. I’m not so sure. Because there’s another factor: It’s called right and wrong. What’s going on too many times in America right now with older Americans is just plain wrong. And to remain silent about it would also be wrong.

What do you think?