No matter what anybody ever tells you there is a spiritual side to our job search. There’s a spiritual side to every human endeavor but the job search is often so traumatic that it’s important for us to “feed” our spirit while we are searching for a job. Along with the emotional ups and downs of a job search, a person’s spirit is affected by the difficulties the body and mind go through. In speaking about feeding our spirit it’s really important to be reminded of the four cardinal virtues.
Prudence is the virtue that disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance and choose the right means of achieving it. No matter how difficult the job search can become with phenomenal instances of rejection and refusal, we have to be convinced that good will come of it. That’s really easy for someone else to say about our personal circumstances. When a person’s been out of work for six months or so and just can’t seem to get a break in finding a job, trying to find the “good” in their experience is hard to justify. But it is there. Even if for no other reason than to keep us humble there can be good in the experience.
Fortitude is the moral virtue that ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of good. This is one of the most important virtues the job seeker has to pray for and practice. The firmness in difficulties… the difficulties of either being out of work or having to find a job when you already have one… the difficulties of being rejected so many times that you can’t count them… the difficulties of doubt, uncertainty and fear… and still have the firmness to continue on looking for the good.
Temperance is the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods. In the job search it is temperance that keeps us from going to play golf when the weather is nice when we know we should be on the phone trying to get an interview. It is temperance that keeps us on track with our routines daily to ensure we do all of the things we should be doing to get a job. Its temperance that keeps our ego and anger in check when things don’t go our way.
Justice is the moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will give due to God. This is a really hard virtue to come to grips with, especially when you’re looking for a job and it’s been a long hard road. For some reason, we all expect justice and fairness on this earth. Life isn’t fair nor is it Just. Justice is in God’s hands. Searching for fairness and justice in this life, especially regarding a job search is futile. Understanding that releases us emotionally from the emotional drain of the rhetorical question of “why isn’t life fair?”
Seeking to practice these virtues in our hearts and minds makes our job search… and life.. a little easier.
