Toiling away at our daily grind, we dream of running away to Hawaii or the South Pacific where we can lie on the beach and do absolutely nothing.
Some of us are lucky enough to take a vacation there and temporarily cut ourselves off from the world of responsibilities and demands and worries. We breathe easier, sleep deeper, eat more heartily. It is truly paradise.
It’s wonderful because we have a life waiting to be reclaimed when we step off the plane. Our job is waiting for us and we go back to work with renewed energy and zest from our long overdue break.
It is like the first few days of unemployment, that honeymoon period when we find ourselves with extra time on our hands and no reason to get up early or fight the rush hour traffic. But honeymoons are not designed to last forever and it is only when they are over, that reality and the hard work of building a marriage starts.
The obvious stressors of unemployment are widely recognized: financial strains, the drudgery and frequent humiliation of job search, the family disruption, the loss of self-confidence and self-esteem. While none of these can be lightly dismissed, we are going to...