Your Job Right Now

Calming your mind and aligning your intention with one simple question.

When I was a teenager, my dad always told me,

"When you're unemployed, your new job is to find a new job."

I know he meant this as a call to hit the pavement. However, following a layoff, 37-year-old me found myself lashed to dad's helpful advice like a bull-rider behind the gate.

The result? Anxiety attacks that woke me up from a dead sleep for a week. Yeah, not great.

It wasn't until I turned a bit of advice from my wife into an unofficial mantra that I was able to properly ride the bull of unemployment. I'll explain.

“That’s not your job right now.”

"Sheesh, Ken—you've spun the sheets off your side of the mattress. What’s going on?"

"I can't sleep. My brain is trying to plot my next move with this job situation."

Through the darkness, I could feel her eyes rolling from her pillow.

"I know you want to find a new job," she mumbled through half-sleep, "but trying to figure that out is not your job right now. Your job right now...is to get some rest."

And with that, she rolled on her side and sank back to sleep.

Pffshh, must be nice, I thought.

Closing my eyes, I repeated my assignment.

Your job right now is to get some rest.

Your job right now is to get some rest.

Your job right now is to get some rest.

Your job right now is to...

The next thing I knew, the sun peeked through the curtains and an alarm clock called us to unfurl the morning. My wife and son were out the door. I headed out for my morning run.

During the first mile (always the worst mile), I felt the dread of the future pushing down on my shoulders. Fear brewed in my chest and simmered in my throat. Looking down at my watch, my heart rate bubbled higher though my pace remained slow.

Slowing steps to a panting halt, I raised my gaze to the oranges and reds of autumn. A gentle breeze stirred an applause of swaying leaves and cooled the sweat on the back of my neck. My heart rate mercifully trickled to normal. Taking a hearty whiff of the season, a smile fought its way across my cheeks as the mantra fell out of my mouth.

"This is your job right now."

Later at home, showered and tweaking resumes for jobs, a surge of productivity carried my eyes across the monitor, fingers dancing on the keyboard. With the tap of a "submit" button to another job application, the mantra emerged again.

"This is your job right now."

The afternoon floated along with a virtual stack of applications and messages zipping across cyberspace.

Before long, I could hear the delightful collision that was my six-year-old son arriving home from school. Bursting through my office door like Kramer sliding into Jerry's apartment, he exploded forth—ready to tell me all about his day.

I swiveled in my chair in his direction, eyes grinning, and said to myself,

"This is your job right now."

This Is / Is Not Your Job Right Now

Over time, this mantra has become a tool—a mental hammer—for both driving-in appropriate thoughts as well as extracting distractions from my daily life.

• "This is your job right now," like the face of a hammer, is used to drive my focus deeper into the proper nail of attention.

• "This is not your job right now," like the claw of a hammer, is used to pry distracting thoughts or bad habits out of my immediate focus.

Too often, the negative stirring we feel (sometimes physically) can be traced back to a distracted misalignment of thoughts with tasks—what is and is not our job "right now."

Maybe you're experiencing dread over something you can't control.

Other times, maybe you're neglecting to take action on something you can control—even with the tiniest steps. Either way, segmenting and properly aligning our mindset can be the difference between anguished ruminating and progress.

Most of the time, I've found that aligning that mindset simply requires a few taps with the hammer face of "This is my job right now" or a few tugs of the hammer claw of "This is not my job right now."

And if you're not sure, you can always stop and ask yourself the following question:

"What is my job right now?"

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