h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I rang my mum tonight, to tell her that I'd had a phone call a few hours earlier, informing me that I didn't get the job that I'd had the last interview for. I was disappointed, naturally enough, but not shattered until Mum started saying that I should get my life in order, first by asking about new places to live, and second by asking people how to go about getting a job. She said, basically, that I'm unhappy where I am, and she and Dad are worried about that fact. Something has to be changed, and the living space is the most important, and the easier to deal with, of these two.

I was stunned. ASKING people! I'd forgotten that people DO that! I was genuinely beginning to think that asking people was something people only did when they wanted to give away their good ideas. I had forgotten that people ask me for things and answers all the time, and that I'm perfectly happy to help when I can. I have to get onto the real estate agents in the area in the morning. I also have to start reading the phone book to see if there's anyone around who can give me some help with finding a job: practical advice about how to deal with interviews and actually succeed in promoting myself, without selling myself, without needing to prevaricate or dissemble, and without telling lies.

The weather was extremely miserable, all day. A perfect day to be told by a potential employer that your career experience is now out of date, and by your mother that you desperately need to change a life you thought was going comparatively well. I am not totally sure that the answers my mother gave me are what the answers should be, but at least they're a start...

The nice thing about changing your life is that often the hardest part of the whole project (or at least the biggest hurdle) is realizing that you have to change. A friend of mine, Todd, is going through that right now, and I'm no stranger to it.

The nice thing is that you have family that love you, and I've found every single time I've changed my life or my behaviour is that after all the mess and struggle, I'm a much happier person.

Good luck!!

Mothers are very wise and give very good advice. My mother was only telling me this the other day, so it must be true