"It
was the worst day of my life
because it plunged me into fear and even
panic. With companies closing and
thousands of jobs being cut, will I be
able to find a new job? What about my
family? What about our home? What about
insurance? How will I pay the bills? I
threw up. I drove home in a stupor, on
auto-pilot.
"My
wife told me a story after we
put the little ones to bed that night.
She reads a lot, and she told me about
the day Nathaniel Hawthorne lost his job.
Instead of reacting with alarm, his wife
said, 'Good. Now you can finish the book
you've been wanting to write. We'll find
a way.'
"Her
story put me in touch with myself and
with what's really important to me —
my wife, my children. That's when it
became the best day of my life. I began
to realize I actually hated my job. It
paid well, but the work was humdrum.
Worse, I was caught up in a petty,
stifling corporate culture, and advancing
meant disrupting family life.
"I'm
not a writer, but there are other things I've
always wanted to do. I'm grateful to Mrs.
Hawthorne and to my wife for pointing me
in the right direction. With my velvet
handcuffs unlocked now, I'm going to try.
We'll find a way."
When I
read that letter, I was reminded of a
dear friend. Whenever we received bad news,
everyone would be discouraged except him. He
would think about the situation, then say,
"Well, wait a minute. Is this all bad?"
And before long he had converted the setback into
an opportunity.
He was
the quintessential American. Stereotypical
American traits that helped us prevail in World
War II, according to a war analyst, were
resilience and resourcefulness. When Nazi leaders
were killed on the battlefield, goose-stepping
Germans would wait around for someone to tell
them what to do next. When American leaders fell,
other enterprising soldiers would take over and
move on.
That's
what millions of resilient, resourceful Americans
are doing today, taking over and moving on. Our
nation is experiencing a renaissance of American
entrepreneurialism that is leaving
mega-corporation goose-steppers behind to care
for their dead and wounded.
We are
strong. We are resilient. We are
resourceful. We are Americans. We will find a
way. — from Work In Progress
— Spring 2009 by John Gile
|
by
John Gile
