For those of us fortunate enough to have kept a job for the past few years, news that the unemployment rate has shifted up or down has become something similar to another commercial on TV – we have begun to tune it out. Millions of people out there are unemployed; some have been that way for years.  Some resort to part-time jobs, some accept significantly reduced salaries.  Some shell out big bucks for education and a new career. Others have simply disappeared from the job equation altogether. They are no longer eligible for unemployment benefits and have resorted to doing whatever they can for whatever they can earn.

Yet many of us complain about our jobs, our bosses, our work environment, our wages, our ever increasing workload. We decry  the lack of a work/life balance, insufficient praise or promotions, or any other injustice that pops into our minds. When you see articles about how to deal with difficult employees or bosses, improving your work/life balance, fixing this, changing that, you begin to see a pattern.  We are taking our jobs for granted!

Maybe we should be grateful for the changes in the marketplace today. Thanks to technology, we can work from home in our pajamas.  We can work whenever we feel like it.  We can stay awake half the night and sleep in the following morning. Thanks to changes in benefits, we can work less than 40 hours a week, but still get full-time benefits.

These changes bring balance to the workday and a salary feeds your family and keeps a roof over your head. Of course your job could be better … but it could also be one heck of a lot worse!

Hans Selye first coined the phrase “an attitude of gratitude” as an antidote to stress. I think this concept should be re-introduced into the new version of “Corporate America” we fare creating every day.

Before you finish your work tonight (wherever that may be), take 5 minutes to think about what your life would be like if you didn’t have your current income.  What would you have to give up?  What would you have to do to find a new job?

And who do you have to thank for that? Tomorrow, when you go back to work find that person and thank them,

Beth Kelzer
Follow Beth at LinkedIn.com/in/marybkelzer
CareerToolboxUSA

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