October is disability employment awareness month. I will try then to give a book talk where I sell copies of the memoir and talk about finding the career you love.
I once helped a guy in a wheelchair who wanted to get a job. The impressive thing was not only was he in a chair he was new to America. I thought: what a great attitude to think you could work at a job even though you use a chair.
This impressed me to no end that some people who could walk on their own two feet are lazy *sses and this guy was ready to rock.
Isn’t there a Soul Asylum song about a person in a wheelchair? About a person in a chair who has so much more to do with their life and doesn’t care about the chair? I think it’s the lyrics to “Black Gold.” Google it if you want to read the lyrics.
I was trained to help people with disabilities do career searches three years ago in October. I will tell you now: a research study indicates 42 percent of employers look favorably on a resume when the person lists a volunteer position if they have no paid employment or have an employment gap between jobs.
On September 30 I will be stepping down from my Health Guide position at HealthCentral. I might freelance there instead or freelance elsewhere. In the nine years I was employed at HealthCentral I wrote at least 11 news articles about how to search for a job and other aspects of conducting a career search.
In October at HealthCentral if I’m able and in this blog if not at HealthCentral: I will detail the research about how individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia who haven’t ever been employed can best take steps to find a job. Research has been done about this and was reported on in the April 2015 Current Psychiatry journal.
Stay tuned for some illuminating blog entries in October.
Flourish 
Thanks, Chris, for all that you do – in sharing Hope, in modeling recovery, in writing so faithfully about issues of interest to us all, from Left of the Dial.
Keep on keeping on, Christina.
Leslie in Baltimore,
gratefully
Hi Leslie,
I’m grateful for your kind words and your support.
I was always cheered by this MLK quote: “Everyone must choose whether to live in the dark of destructive selfishness or walk in the light of creative altruism. Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: ‘What are you doing for others?'”
Good night,
Chris
Thank YOU, Chris.
I’d never heard that quote from Dr. King. It carries such weight.
I am at a point in my life (and may have always been here), but perhaps now to a greater degree, where I am being very very selfish and very very self-destructive.
And although I work with a terrific psychiatrist, and have pretty good meds, I am feeling hopeless.
I should be able to turn myself around, but I am not sure I even want to do that — or maybe, even more, is that I feel I do not have the strength to do so.
I will continue to read your blog, and so gratefully. You inspire me, Chris.
Very sincerely,
Leslie
Dear Leslie,
As long as you’re doing the best you can that’s all you can ask of yourself. And your best will change from day to day as Don Miguel Ruiz wrote in the wonderful short book The Four Agreements: a practical guide to personal freedom.
I wouldn’t be able to judge someone who is selfish because it’s possible what they’re really doing is taking care of themselves first of all at a time in their life when God or the Universe is telling them that this is what they have to do.
Still I believe that it takes time and a person should give themselves a generous “lifeline” not a deadline by which they have to achieve something. So I talked at HealthCentral about setting a goal that has a lifeline not a deadline.
Just remember: this is a snapshot of today. I prefer to focus on living for today. It’s been my experience that stressing over the future and what might happen or not happen causes more pain.
Regards,
Chris
Chris,
Thank you for your amazingly thoughtful, measured, comments and advice.
I am so grateful.
I admire your writing, and the fact that you reach so many people.
You have made your life a blessing.
Till next we “speak”….be well!
Leslie, gratefully