B'H
If a person has skills and experience in a fairly multi skilled profession, it should be easy to be gainfully employed, one would think. However from experience and anecdotal evidence and statistics, it is not so, if one has hit the big 50. It is also true of younger women who have taken years off to raise children, a very demanding and highly skilled occupation. Often they need to retrain in a different profession to their original profession to be employed at all. It is strange. Having children or getting older, does not necessarily mean we should be any less competent or efficient in our work. We do not lose brain cells through child bearing or getting older. Often some of the most interesting and capable women I have met are women who have effectively raised large families of children successfully. Some of the most boring women I have met are single career women, no kids, self obsessed and totally focussed on their careers and who want to talk shop the whole time. And the same goes for guys. Sorry fellows, but it is true.
I noticed this strange phenomena once when talking to a single friend of mine who had the flu. I got a run down of every little symptom connected to the illness. Oy, the headaches, the back pain, the stuffiness, my sore throat. Oy vey, I am so sick. Sorry, but this person and I love her dearly, was totally focused on her feelings and how she felt. Not once did she ask about me, my son or anyone we knew. It was all her and her and her. She is intelligent, extremely so, but kinda so self centred. I never ring her when I want some sympathy. I would go to another friend I have who is the mother of twelve children. She, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. She never tells you when she is not feeling good. You have to be observant enough to see it and ask her directly. She is an amazing human being. She always asks you how you are. You have to ask her how she feels and she will tell you 'Baruch Hashem' even though you can see she is dropping from tiredness or has a bit of a flu or is just in pain. She puts that aside and focuses on others. She has a lot of skills and a lot of talents that are hidden under the persona of 'mother' and 'bubba'. Under the hat of mother and grandmother, there are many hidden talents and experiences that could be used in professions such as education, counselling, child care,sales and marketing, horticulture, animal husbandry, pediatric care, real estate, administration, organisation, accounting and housekeeping. Most men are pretty two dimensional compared to women. They tend to specialise in their fields and let's face it, they do get very good at it and are able to reach great heights in their chosen field, but they are hardly ever single. There is usually a hard working wife or partner behind the scenes, being supportive and assisting his lordship up the ladder. That is OK too. It means that there is a balance in the equation of a relationship or marriage.
Women tend to be more versatile and think on their feet and take what comes, dealing with whatever is dealt them. We are masters of necessity and have to perform under pressures that would break most men into pieces. Men were not built for pressure. Women are. That is why it is surprising to see so many unemployed older women around. Maybe we are threatening the less competent.
I would love to work for the dole. It would be better than taking handouts from the government or anyone. There is something quite empowering about doing some work and receiving money for it. It is a way of gauging one's self worth. The more one is paid the better one feels about oneself. If one cannot even get volunteer work, your self esteem plummets and you do get very depressed. You think what is the use and why am I alive and sometimes you do consider after years of unemployment, especially if you have been bullied out of a work situation where you have been made to feel the most incompetent, stupid and useless person to have ever existed, that perhaps it would be better if you were dead. You go to sleep at night thinking, why do young people get cancer and not some useless individual like myself? Why can't you just make a quick end to my life, G-D if there is no purpose for me being here. You demand of G-D that a path is given to you/ You ask WHY? Again and again and AGAIN until you want to scream it out in the dark of the night. Why me/ Maybe because somewhere there is an answer and you have not been sensitive or aware enough to see it. You ring and offer your services to schools and other organisations and there is nothing forthcoming and you think what is wrong with me? If you are strong and healthy you start to think, OK, what are the reasons and you talk to people. You find out that other people of similar age and gender do have similar issues. No body wants you. That does not mean the problem is with you. They just can not see your worth. They don't understand who you are and the wealth of experiences that you bring to a place of employment. They don't look past the part on your CV that says date of birth and if it is before 1985, they are not interested. They want the young, the fresh and untried. Those people are malleable and easily influenced. You can mould and control them, you think. Us older ones, we are not so easily fooled and we understand and see too much. If there are issues in a work place, we may also cotton on much quicker than a younger, more inexperienced worker. We are confrontational and we fight back. We demand a higher level of competence than some of the younger ones. That is scary. People gloss over mistakes these days and that is fine, so they think. But it will have a price one day. Not tomorrow, but in the future.
There are ten levels of tzedaka or charity. The highest level of tzedaka is to empower a person to gainful employment so they do not need to be dependent on charity and therefore a drain on the community coffers. Sometimes accepting tzedaka in its many forms is necessary and other times when one has skills and experience that could quite easily be utilised, it is demeaning and humiliating, but if one has a mouth or mouths to feed that is dependent on one, it becomes necessity. While I do not mind to suffer and to do without, it is painful to see a child or an older person suffer because one does not have the means to support them for the essentials of life like food, clothing and shelter over their head.
Be a compassionate and caring person who wants to build connections in society and make bridges between the generations and not divide. Hire older people and older people be understanding and caring of the young and inexperienced. Older people share your experience and wisdom with the youth but not in a condescending or controlling way. Age and youth need each other to make a good and strong society to the depths of its soul. Otherwise we create soul-less imperfect societies that collapse.
POST SCRIPT
I have a story. It is not a nice story but it needs to be told. I got an email from someone. It was direct attack at me and I responded accordingly. The person who sent it was very cunning and said it was meant to be sent to some one else. It was not. She had her reasons to send it to me and I got her to reveal her true feelings about me openly which I had read between the lines for some time in communications between us for some time. No apology but a calculated and vicious response which I believe has been waiting in the wings for a while. I had felt a really malicious jealousy in my communications with her as an undercurrent and could not quite put my finger on it. I actually thought she was going through a hard time so I excused her behaviour and some of the sly malice which I felt in her communications as stress related. She made comments in previous emails about me having converted and how did I end up with a shwartzer (in other words yiddishe for Nigger). Black people also have feelings and they are also human beings. It is not to say that white people or caucasians have a monopoly on racism. They do not. I, more than most, fully appreciate how devastating it can be to find out that you are no more than a ticket to a new life and can be discarded like a piece of used tissue paper. Also to boot, to be told by a person you had trusted and loved and assisted in many ways both overseas and in the country of your birth, that you are no more than trash to him, a slut and a whore like all white women, or most anyway to him, is one of the most hurtful and savage things to experience. I would not wish it on anyone, especially not when you happen to pregnant to that man. To see every black person or African person in the light of that experience would be to not appreciate that there are some very high quality good black or African people around. People of high moral and ethical character and people who you would miss out on knowing if you were judge them the way you have been depicted and judged by one vicious and nasty person who just happens to be African. You do not buy into that story just the way I will not buy into the calculated viciousness of this person.
However, this mail requires an answer. The mail about the Noahides was send to you by mistake, not intended to you but to another closer friend Ilana. So I excuse myself for sending it to you unintentionally. However, your reaction is pathetic, showing your real character. You are a pathetic human being with a bag full of inferiority complexes. So yes, YOU go to hell yourself. You are shameful, your reaction is shameful, both disgusting. Something is really wrong with you; you need help, go get it.
I did laugh when I read her email because it was calculated and vicious just as I said and she has been dying to say this for a long time. Twenty years ago, I would have been cut to the quick by such a letter and would have spent the best part of a week weeping and bawling my eyes out and going over and over the letter and thinking about 'why I am pathetic' and why doesn't she like me, what have I done wrong?' In other words, I would buy right into the script of the person who would send such a letter. Now tougher and wiser, I read between the lines and laugh because this is a perfect example of psychological projection. She is the one crying for help. She is very similar to the woman who is leaving obscene panting messages or the silent phone calls I have been getting on my mobile from an internet number 61 3 90903737. Yes, the number has come up on my phone. You would think that a person who goes to the trouble of making obscene phone calls could at least have a blocked number and do it properly. Anyway I have got Telstra to put a trace on the number and will go to the police with the trace number, so the silly creature can make all the stupid calls she wants.
Thank you G-D! The year has gotten off to a flying start. What next? No, please do not tell me. I am praying for peace and Moishiach NOW!
DEEP BREATHE, MEDITATE and some MUZAK.
http://rebshaya.com/new-releases/higayon-bkinor-meditations-for-violin-jewish-music-to-heal-by/
This is a great CD by the wayand when I can afford it, I am buying it. I RECOMMEND IT.
Mantra....
Chill, girl, chill and let the dogs of war run in other quarters. Create mental fences against those who would try to destroy who you are. Do not let them take you down paths you do not wish to travel and to tangle you in emotional thorn thickets. Burst forth and be free and at one with the Universal Master, Creator of All. You are your own best mother. Do not look for gentleness or compassion in others. Be and be compassionate to yourself and yours first.
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