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Jihad’s Job-Wash
A career wakeup call care of bin Laden
By Rev. Pierce Pacey

I imagine many people are asking themselves: Is it time for a change? Life-shattering events such as the WTC disaster, combined with the brutal face of a shifting economy, often lead us to question our career path — as well as our life path. "Where the hell am I heading and how am I going to pay my bills?" If you’re an employee of a major airline, you’ve most likely already forced yourself to answer that question.

Stagnation blankets our lives more often than we should allow, only getting interrupted by a major wake-up call — like a spouse threatening divorce, a child shipped into rehab, or the loss of your seemingly stable career. Being faced with these "life tittie twisters" can be a very good thing, a shock to the soul that helps us redefine where we’re heading, why we’re heading there, and how we might get there. Unfortunately, they don’t give us answers; they just wipe out the clutter and force us to look at the bigger picture.

But this, too, can be good for our spirits. In fact, the bigger picture is something we should do our very best to consider on a weekly basis, maybe more often for some; you know who you are. Force yourself to look at the landscape -- not just the individual flora — and review your direction and options. How secure is your career? I can almost hear the knocking of knees floating over from Intel at this very moment. I’m already shivering at the thought that Intel posted nearly identical earnings as when they had 20,000 fewer employees. Where’s the security in that?

How well do you control your career destiny? If you’re an entrepreneur, you have already dealt with this question by jumping into the water on your own, as opposed to boarding the cruise ship with the rest of us. For example, say you’re an independent exterminator with 150 regular customers, 20 of whom are larger, corporate clients. Then say the economy tanks and six of those larger clients drop their extermination budget. Guess what, you’ve still got 144 total clients, and chances are you’re going to have to work overtime to provide them with reduced rates and/or increased services. The difference from an average worker bee is you, and not some corporate board of directors, control whether or not you’ll be pulling in a paycheck next month.

No doubt, there is prestige associated with working for "The Firm," or being titled a Senior Account Supervisor. Still, there is no denying that the power of being Owner, Proprietor, Daily Master of My Destiny has an extremely strong and tempting pull, stronger than most benefits packages or titles. In today’s frigid economy, it’s difficult to trade the comfort of your office at XYZ company for the risky proposition of jumping into the pool alone. But while this may be true, the rewards of such a jump are no less compelling now than they were 12 months ago.

Terrorism strikes us in so many ways it’s hard to imagine just when the effects will stop rippling through our lives. Terrorism often takes the lives of the innocent, and the true depth of the terror can be felt for months, even years afterward, accompanied by a seemingly unending wave of aftershocks for the survivors. Yet, for the living there are options, options to review their destiny and rethink their paths, both career and otherwise.

Consider, then, the threat of Jihad a wake-up call. Many of the world’s most successful individuals found their success (financial and personal) through difficult and tragic events that shifted their lives and pushed the truth directly in front of their eyes. These events forced them to dig deep into the human spirit and find the direction that was best for their soul, those around them, and the general good of the world. Perhaps the earth that is our lives should shake more often. It might just push us to heights we never thought possible.