the up side of unemployment

yes, it is a drag, not bringing a paycheck, feeling a little like no one loves you, not being paid for what you are worth (oh, wait a minute....that happened when i WAS employed), but there ARE some pluses:

1.  you can sit on your ass and crochet everyday
2.  people want to buy you meals (at least for a little while)
3.  you don't have to dig out of 2 feet of snow to get to work in the morning (yes, i live in MN and this DID happen today)
4.  you don't have to pay some one else to questionably raise your kids while you are at work - you can questionably raise them yourself!
5.  when you take a shower, it feels really good to scrape off the 3 days worth of body crust that accumulated while you were sitting crocheting all day
6.  you can finally paint your fingernails black and don't care if they start to chip off right away
7.  if you don't get the chance to work out today, you will have the chance to do it tomorrow!
8.  you finally figure out what it is your pet does all day
9.  you don't have to face the dilemma of where to go to eat because you can't afford to eat out ANYWHERE
10. you can sit on your ass and crochet all day

i have often thought about this concept of how we in America define ourselves by our jobs.  how sad!  it is natural, of course to feel the need to have a purpose, no matter how mundane.  i can look into a koi pond and am reminded of that accepted fact that a fish will not remember one side of the pond long enough to know that in swimming back and forth he isn't going anywhere.  even the koi has a purpose, however, regardless of the fact that he appears to have no intelligence to us. 

his purpose is to clean, process, and be eaten.  it is quite elegant in its simplicity and contributes toward the balance that keeps life going.  could it be that humans are missing out on our own simple and beautiful purpose?  do we disrupt the balance by achieveing instead of just doing?  do we mistakenly assign value to each role by labeling it "mundane" (see above) and rewarding some roles at a higher rate, regardless of their contribution to the greater good.....ugh!

think it is time to sit on my ass and crochet!