My methodology was very simple. I opened the contact list on my phone and counted the number of people I knew who were currently or imminently out of work. I then divided by the number of total contacts to derive a new, powerful macroeconomic metric – The TOA Unemployment Rate. At the time of writing, this figure was 11.7%. I then went a little deeper and tallied up those who were underserved by their wages. Simply stated, in this group I included anyone who wasn’t able to achieve basic lifestyle goals (like living away from home) because of their income. This particular calculation resulted in a rate of 16.7%.
I went through this little exercise because my reaction to the ‘record unemployment’ number was the same as always – total skepticism. In the past month alone, I’ve talked to five different people about their current state of unemployment and what they might do about it. This is a capable group of five. They could form the foundation of a promising new company or ably serve a productive department within an existing organization. Among many highlights, this group boasts multiple advanced degrees and certifications, decades of experience, and work histories that demonstrate both the skills and career progressions that employers around the world claim they struggle to find for their open roles.
And yet, these talented and qualified people leave The TOA Unemployment Rate many percentage points higher than the current national average. And did I mention that these people live in areas of the country that allegedly have even lower unemployment rates than the national average? What gives? Why is my experience so different from the so-called national average? I suppose it’s possible I happen to associate with the inherently unemployable; I would argue vehemently against such a position. It could also be that the demographics of my social circle skew wildly away from those that comprise national averages; I’m open to this consideration, but based on my quick review I don’t think this is the case.
I think there’s something else at play here, something I see every day, and it explains why I routinely sense a discrepancy with my experience and with the national experience reported back to me in these aggregate statistics. I think the answer is fear. I think someone out there, whoever it is that is in charge of the unemployment rate, is afraid of stating a truth about the number – it’s 5%, it’s 7%, it’s 10% – and decided to find a way to calculate a lower rate. This methodology might include any number of entirely reasonable counting techniques that justifiably leave certain unemployed people out of the final calculation. My favorite such maneuver is not including people who have ‘given up’ on finding work – these people are so unemployable that they cannot be employed by a statistic! But regardless of the good explanations for these metrics, I believe at the heart of the matter is a fear about reporting certain truths about reality.
I think the fear involved runs both ways – it isn’t just the reporter who is afraid of stating a higher rate but also the consumer who is afraid of seeing the distressing figure. This fear is put to the test when we see the stories that report a national record low of 3.8%. We flunk this test each time we mindlessly nod along instead of simply saying ‘no, this 3.8% number is too low’. Again, for whatever reason there is a real fear of saying something that contradicts a widely accepted perception of reality – especially if such a perception is presented by a competent, experienced, and knowledgeable source.
***
I first started thinking about how fear prevents us from questioning perceptions of reality when I started meeting with aspiring hospice volunteers during their orientation period. My role in these meetings included describing the role, clarifying certain gray areas, and sharing some of my experiences. However, by far the most important responsibility was to answer questions from the new volunteers. After a few such sessions, I began noticing a pattern in the questions. The topics would cover varied ground – how to interact with staff, the best ways to direct visitors, the challenges of meeting residents. What I quickly realized was at the core of these questions was fear – fear of appearing incompetent in front of the staff, fear of making a visitor feel unwelcome, fear of saying the wrong thing to a resident.
My responses improved markedly as I learned to address the fear at the core of the question rather than merely responding literally to the question. I would do so by acknowledging the ambiguity or uncertainty involved in many aspects of the role and note the ways I had been upset or intimidated by certain experiences. The interesting result of including these details in my answers was how it tended to bring forward more openness or vulnerability in the follow up questions from the group. I might be asked by shy volunteers, for example, how to best introduce themselves to a disoriented resident. The bolder volunteers would directly challenge me to share how I’ve responded to emotionally difficult situations or conversations.
Such questions always came after I’d acknowledged that fear was a permanent reality of the hospice environment for even the most competent, experienced, and knowledgeable volunteers. I suspect this is partly the case because my acknowledgement validated the fear the new volunteers had intended to keep to themselves. By sharing my own trepidation, I had established the ‘Q&A’ as a safe space for these prospective volunteers to share similar feelings in front of strangers. However, I also think that my responses had the effect of challenging a perception of reality the new volunteers carried with them – the mistaken belief that an experienced volunteer didn’t share their same vulnerabilities. Every answer I gave to the group that demonstrated my self-doubt, unease, or fear was my way of shattering the myth that what any experienced volunteer feels is somehow different from the inner turmoil of their own experiences.
I’ve noted in the past how the most unexpected result of volunteering with a hospice has been the way my experiences have extended into my life outside the residence. The observation about how acknowledging my own internal experience to a group of prospective volunteers helped them validate their own trepidation has been among the most important of these extensions. I see fear underlying so much of what I used to naively ascribe to incompetence, malice, pettiness, or greed. Fear, I’ve realized, explains so much more about passivity than does indifference. When we collectively uphold a vision of reality that varies so wildly from our experience, I know now that the foundation on which such a vision is built is not misperception, but fear.
***
I look at the reports about the record setting unemployment rate and I wonder – what are we afraid of? It’s possible we fear admitting that the quicksand of unemployment is uncomfortably close, always so close that the foundations of our life can never feel fully secure. The unemployed face the obvious challenge of financial strain, of course, and many rightfully fear enduring this specific ordeal, but there is so much more to it than just a vanishing bank account. The unemployed generally lose the sense of meaning, purpose, or confidence that once was an unacknowledged consequence of steady employment. The loss of work also means the loss of the community many establish within the workplace and this partly contributes to the isolation of the unemployed. This isolation is further exacerbated by a decline in social life – the unemployed struggle to establish new relationships and often battle in vain against the relentless pressure unemployment places on their existing bonds. Many researchers discover that unemployment results in long-term trauma, a finding that may also be explained as an indirect but lasting consequence of the decline in mental, emotional, and physical health experienced by the unemployed.
Or perhaps, I should rewrite the above as ‘we’, having myself been out of work for an extended period that ended just over a year ago. I can confirm that there is much to fear, all of the above and perhaps a little more (oh, the small talk). It’s no wonder to me that we never talk about why there are so many long-term unemployed in such a healthy job market. If things are constantly presented to be ‘as good as it gets’, then there is little value in worrying much about it.
This attitude reminds me in a broader sense about our orientation toward death and what I perceive as the common position that as long as we don’t think we’ll die tomorrow, we should probably not worry about it today. Our collective longevity is better than ever, and therefore as good as it gets. So, why worry? I think the problem is that the fears we choose not to face today become the fears we cannot face tomorrow. Fear put aside for too long can fester and grow until we are no longer able to face it on our own. I believe this is the essence of what we do in hospice – we help people face debilitating fear so that they can get the most out of every day. We help face the fear of pain with medicine, the fear of isolation with companionship, and the fear of irrelevance by validating that all stages of life matter. We help families, friends, and visitors face their own fears so that they can acknowledge reality and support their loved one. As volunteers, we play a small but significant role in this mission. When death comes – as it always does – we try to face the fear of this undefeated opponent with courage, dignity, and unity.
I believe that if so much can be done to help others face the fear of death, then surely we can do more to face our fears of unemployment. We can build stronger communities at home and in the neighborhood so that the workplace becomes one of many places in which we belong and just one role among many in which we find purpose. We can strengthen our relationships so that they are better able to withstand the pressures placed on them from outside forces. We can support policy changes – such as eliminating the link of health insurance and full-time employers – so that the loss of a paycheck is just that and nothing more. In essence, we can decouple the loss of a job with the loss of the life enabled by that the job. We can reduce a large singular fear into smaller components that can be faced and overcome in turn. Most importantly, we’ll learn to notice when the world hides its fear from us and understand the inherent possibility in rejecting the fairytale of ‘as good as it gets’. It isn't until we turn away from this myth that we'll be ready to step forward and carry what we can of the shared burden of facing fear.
