A lot has happened since my last blog post. When I last posted an article in early September, John McCain was leading in the polls and the Dow Jones was 3,000 points higher than it is today.
Oh, and the US lost a ton of jobs. They originally reported a loss of 159,000 job losses in September, the worst in five years. Turned out that they were off (by a lot). Instead, there was a loss of 403,000 jobs in September, followed by 320,000 job losses in October. November topped them all: 533,000 jobs were lost, the worst in 34 years (which also brings the total to 1.256 million over the last three months alone).
They say that one sad story is tragic, but a thousand of them is a statistic. It’s very easy to forget that every single job loss has a person, a story, a life that was attached to that job, and when we’re talking about numbers this big, it’s simply overwhelming.
Which brings me to why I’m writing this post after such a long hiatus. During the last recession in the early 2000’s, I was one of those statistics. It was my first job after being done with school. Ever since grade school, I was told to get good grades so I worked hard at it. In college, I was told that engineers would always be in demand so I worked hard in that major. When I worked for an internet company, I was told to work hard and I would get rewarded in stock options. The company went bankrupt, my stock options were worthless and I was out of a job. I remember telling myself, “It wasn’t supposed to end this way. I did what I was told. I was faithful and worked hard but I have nothing to show for it.” I was angry and unemployed.
Fast forward to the present. I had to take a break with my blog to write a proposal for the company I work for today. While I was writing that proposal, I got news of winning a previous proposal I wrote (I mentioned it in my last post). So what about that proposal that made me take a break from blogging? I just found out I won that too.
What changed? Getting laid off a few years ago taught me the hard lesson that I can’t let others think for me - I need to think for myself. I also learned that the Puritanical devotion of working hard is not nearly as valuable as working smart.
I’ve always wanted to get back to blogging, but the recent economic turn has really inspired me to pick it up again. I was in the middle of redesigning the blog layout for a relaunch, but I’m not sure I can wait that long. There’s chock full of stuff I want to write about! I started this blog as an outlet for myself to help people do the right things for pursuing their goals and dreams. It seems like a good time for me to blog about it again.
译文:
533,000，这太多了
自从我上一篇博客发表以后发生了很多事情。当我在九月初发表上一篇文章时，约翰·麦凯恩的民意调查还处在领先地位，道琼斯指数比今天高了3000点。
啊，而且美国的失业率非常高。他们最初报道在九月份有159，000失去了工作，是五年里最严重的一次损失。事实是他们公布的数据比实际数据要少很多。相反，九月份有403，000人失去了工作，接着十月份320，000人失业。十一月超过前两个月达到了最高峰：533，000人失业，34年来最严重的一次（单单过去的三个月失业总额就达到了125.6万）。
他们说一个悲惨的故事是悲剧，但一千个这样的故事就只是一个统计了。这很容易让人忘记每一个失业背后与之相关的人，故事和生活，而且当我们谈论到这个巨大的数字时，实在让人感到震惊。
这就是为什么我中断这么久之后又写了这张帖子的原因。2000年初，在上一次经济衰退时，我是那些统计数字中的一员。那是我毕业以后的第一份工作。从小学那时起，我被告知要取得好成绩，所以我努力学习。在大学，我被告知社会需求一直需要工程师，所以我努力地学那门专业。当我在一家网络公司工作的时候，我被告知要努力工作并将会获得股票期股作为奖励。公司倒闭了，我的股票期股变得一文不值，我也失业了。我记得跟自己说过,“我不应该以这种方式结束。我做被告知的事情。我忠诚并努力工作，可是我什么成绩也没有。”我生气并失业了。
时间飞逝，到了现在。我不得不停止写博客，给我现在工作的公司写一份建议。当我在写这份建议时，我得到消息我先前写的那份建议被采用了（在上一篇帖子时我提过了）。所以让我暂时不写博客而写的这份建议会怎么样呢？我只知道这次我也会赢。
改变了什么？几年前的被解雇事件给了我一个深刻教训：我不能指望别人会为自己考虑－我需要为自己考虑。我也知道了清教徒“辛勤工作”这种信仰比不上“聪明工作”有用。
我总想回到博客，而最近经济的转折又激励我重新写博客了。为了重新开博，我正忙于博客版面设计的新设计中，但我不确定我能等那么长的时间。我有满肚子的话要写出来。创办这个博客，作为我帮助人们为了追求自己的目标和梦想而做的正确事情的出口。这似乎是一个我重新开博的好时机。