The Unemployed Bum

Just because you have a million and one things to do, doesn't mean you will be guaranteed to get them done. And just because your present intentions are sincere, doesn't mean they get immunity from circumstances beyond your control to execute them. So yeah, I have sickle cell.... yada yada yah, and I'm also an author (more yada yah). I'm also a person do doesn't take kindly to being told she can't. I'm stubborn to a fault, and I don't know when to quit.

It confuses the hell out of me when people that are 100% healthy are not just unemployed (shit happens, none of us are immune to that), but choose to wallow in their situation and even blame their lack of 'xyz' on there inability to improve it. I'm self-employed (which at the moment is barely a stones throw from unemployed when we look at it from a financial perspective), but what keeps me busy, whether paid or not, is what I do in spite of not having a weekday 9-5 and a meagre monthly salary. I work, and damn it oftentime I work more hours than your average 9-5er and for less pay too. I do it not only because I can, I do it because I must. I do it to prove to myself that it is possible, that I'm not a waste of space and I because have children that need a role model. I will not have my short peeps grow up thinking they don't have to try, after all, mummy sat on her arse doing nothing. Hecks naw! I take my role as a mother very seriously and I believe that much of being a parent is a combination of 'do as I say' and 'do as I do'. How do I encourage my children to work hard and BE their best, if I'm doing nothing of the sort?

I don't just do it for them though, I do it for my sanity. How the hell does someone who is not limited by the contraints of their body, sit at home doing nothing but eat, shit 'n' sleep, day in - day out? If I don't achieve something, no matter how small everyday, I feel as if I may as well not exist. I'm little more than a useless eater, totally out of synch with the universe, because all that is natural and in accordance with oneness does not only take, it gives too. Just like the tides can not only ebb, they must also flow.

It's been about a year and a half since I last earned a monthly paycheck, but if a future employer were to ask me, 'What have you been doing since your last form of employment?' I could hold my head up and give an exhaustive list of new skills I have attained from writing and promoting books to hosting a radio show and becoming a motivational speaker.

It's not about having formal papers to tell you that you have a right to BE. After all, qualifications are just a socially accepted measure of your ability to perform well within a particular environment. In the age where wikipedia rules, how to's and tutorials are freely available on the internet, Joe Randoms are becoming experts in all areas. So why not enhance yourself and become an authority in your field of interest? I know a person who taught themself how to read, I know peeps who have learned how to install telephone extensions, and I have taught myself how to sell books that I've written, simply through creative application of what I already knew, and thus I know more for having done so. You don't have to move mountians, but beyond your overdrawn bank statements, prove to yourself that you exist. When your time on this plane has expired, aside from a bitter after-taste, what will be the proof that you came, saw and conquered? What have you done with your life today?