GRATITUDE
(January/February 2004 Issue)

Thanksgiving was with us recently, and there is plenty to be thankful for. Amidst the everyday struggles of your life, step back for a moment and consider where you might place a large helping of gratitude.

In America, we have great freedom of career choice. So much that "what career should I choose?" has given birth to our profession and is a seemingly never-ending question. There are so many possible career choices that they can be overwhelming. And yet we take for granted this freedom of choice. We think we’re entitled to it just because we were born. Immigrants to the US have a better grasp on the beauty of this freedom. Ask a new citizen about it sometime. I’d rather have the "problem" of choosing among thousands of careers than be told by the government what my job will be.

Gratitude can be heaped upon the many transferable skills that each of us inherits and develops in our lifetimes. We are truly, as Donald Super said a long time ago, "multi-potential" in that we are capable of succeeding and being satisfied with a large number of careers. This is because we are multi-skilled, and our skills can be shaken up like a kaleidoscope to form many different career patterns. We lose one job, we can reconfigure our skills to find others. Our skills packages burst the boundaries of job descriptions. We can use clusters of skills to create and implement business ideas. When we get a new job or invent a business, we find that we have even more skills than we thought we did.

We can also be grateful for a job market that is fluid, one that allows people of many different educational backgrounds to gain entry to a variety of fields. Yes, educational credentials are required for many technical careers (health, engineering, science, etc.), but a vast number of sectors of the job market are open to almost anyone. People succeed in the business world with or without business majors, with high grades and low grades, with liberal arts degrees and other degrees. Many also succeed in business without any college at all. Let’s be grateful for a system that is open to everyone with ambition, good work habits, creativity, and the ability to adapt to ever-changing work conditions.

As career counselors, we can be grateful for a job market that allows our clients to change jobs or careers at any age, in the widest possible geographical range, using past skills or developing new ones. Increasingly, the system also encourages "portfolio careers," in which an individual develops two or more income streams. The opportunity for career change beckons to anyone willing to plunge into unknown territory. Those who make career shifts learn that each change makes the next one more do-able, because you tend to grow wiser from your mistakes.

However, this reminds me of one area where I would like to express gratitude, but it needs a little help. And that is respect for "older" people in the job market. While your client can look for different work at any age, discrimination is still here with regard to older people. The national obsession with youth has driven many older workers to cosmetic surgery and other drastic youthifying measures. The youth craze has endured too long. Age, and the wisdom that sometimes comes with it, deserves more attention in our country. We could benefit by taking a close look at Native Americans and other cultures which honor older people and learn from them.

I believe we can be grateful for a (gradually) improving climate for diversity, where people of varying cultures, ethnicities, and backgrounds are increasingly working together and sharing their special knowledge and talents with each other. When people of diverse backgrounds work face-to-face. they recognize their common interests, friendships develop, and they break down stereotypes.

No matter what we think of our elected officials, or which party is in power, we have a political system that offers the individual a tremendous range of career options. Assertiveness, resourcefulness, inventiveness, and focus have a strong likelihood of paying off.

In lauding opportunity in America, I do not mean to disregard the serious obstacles that many people encounter - violent family environments, physical and mental disabilities, economic hardships, and many others. I simply am saying that we can be grateful for a job market that rewards initiative, creativity and persistence. With the help of others (no one accomplishes anything without help), obstacles can be worked with and often overcome.

As career counselors, we can urge our clients to tackle whatever career challenge appeals to them. We offer no guarantees of success, but we can tell them that most any occupation in the Occupational Outlook Handbook is potentially within their grasp. And imagination can create thousands more possible careers or businesses not listed in the OOH.

It’s nice to have a system where a client can conjure up the wildest possible career idea and the counselor can work with the client to plan how it might possibly come true. We offer our heartfelt gratitude for that.

Howard Figler, Ph.D., is the author of The Complete Job Search Handbook and The Career Counsleor's Handbook. He can be reached at: hefigler@pacbell.net