Beginning - The Layoff

I worked in IT and sat in cubicle after cubicle. Then I really moved up in the world and I got an office, with a window. Then a bigger one. With several windows. I used to sit and stare out the windows at the sunny world and the cars going by and the people who were out doing things, not stuck sitting in an office staring out the window.

I was paid well, had great health insurance, a big job title, dreaded getting up every morning, detested the hour long drive, disliked many of the people around me, was bored to tears with the 'work' I was paid to do. I was 60 pounds overweight and making good use of that great health insurance. It paid for the daily asthma medication, daily high blood pressure medication & visits to several different doctors regularly.

Then I got laid off.

People have different reactions to being laid off. There are training classes for the HR staff to teach how to lay people off, what to say, how to phrase it. They are instructed to be sympathetic but firm, to have a box of tissues nearby, to get all of the security clearances deleted before the axe is dropped and to watch for danger signs that the layoffee is not taking it well.

I had no problem with it. My reaction was relief - excitement, no less than joy. I felt released from bondage. Released from prison. Like a weight had been lifted. I was almost giddy.

They say you can leave right away but I asked for permission to clean my office, give files and information to others, hug everyone and wish them well and write some thank you cards to my managers for the time we'd spent together. All in all, it was a wonderful learning experience. I was very thankful for the entire thing and very excited to see What Came Next.

As I was leaving I asked if I could please take my little tech library with me. I was well known for being the book person. I begged for book money rather than money to take classes (and usually got it). Books last far longer than a class and you can buy a dozen great ones for the cost of one class sometimes. You never know if the instructor will be any good, if you'll feel well that day and be able to learn what you're supposed to, etc. But with a book you can go at your own pace and revisit parts that you have trouble with. Books have always been good friends. I was very happy that my good friends were allowed to go home with me.

Once home, I felt that same giddiness. Just outright joy, a rebirth feeling. I was free at last! My first decision was to not make any decisions. I gave myself one month of total vacation time. I had some severance money, I could pay the bills, I wasn't going to run out and look for the next prison.

The next few days were freefall - they felt like vacation or holiday time at first, but then were just strange. No set routine, nothing really DRIVING me. I hadn't ever realized before how I depended on some force outside of myself driving me. That force MADE me get to bed by a certain time because I HAD to get up by a certain time because I HAD to be in the car by a certain time and HAD to be at work and HAD to be in my chair at my desk whether I was working or not and HAD to go to lunch at a certain time whether I was hungry or not. All day long. When that outside driving force was no longer there..... I actually found myself not knowing what to do. There were just too many possibilities.

I started into my natural circadian sleep pattern. Do you know yours? Most don't. We are forced into the external one that's set up for us. We have to be up by this time so that's when we set the alarm and hit snooze several times and groan and cuss and drag ourselves out of bed and head for the caffeine.

I stayed up until dawn, just because I wanted to. I slept when I was tired, ate when I was hungry, walked slowly around my own home during daylight hours and realized I rarely spend any time in my own home during daylight hours. I'm always gone - at work - working to make the money to pay for the home that I don't spend time in.

My natural sleep pattern is to be in bed by 2 am and up by 10 am. And starting with that empowering knowledge, I get 8 hours of sleep every night. Not 5, or 6 or anything squeezed in to try and cheat and work around the Driving Force that makes my alarm clock go off. But 8 real, healing, restful hours of sleep.

I started walking every day with my little dog. This layoff was the best thing to ever happen to her. We have a beautiful city park only a block away from this house that I bought that I never spend any time in during the day. I walked to the park and had a great time walking around it, feeding the ducks and walking the dog and realized I never spend any time in that park. What a shame to live this close and never be home during the day to see and enjoy the park.

I started preparing my own food instead of eating from vending machines and instead of stress eating. A book found me - fell right at my feet in fact at the local library one day - The Okinawa Diet. I read it - ate it up actually - and started preparing my meals based on that book. They were delicious, fulfilling, and that combined with the walking allowed weight to drop off. Fifty pounds worth.

No more medication needed for asthma. No more asthma. No more medication needed for high blood pressure. No more high blood pressure. No more doctor visits needed, not for years in fact. Odd how that valuable health insurance was needed the most when I was in the false environment that made me the sickest.

So where does bookselling come in to this?

The hard facts are that money is needed to live and walking in the park and eating stir fry and rice is great, but it doesn't create any money. By the second day I started hearing my Type A voice going off in my head trying to work on the next job, but I shushed it. I journaled instead. Writing about what I wanted in life - life scripting they call it. Writing, in detail, about what you really want. More on that later - there's a great book on this that I devoured that helped me a great deal.

The second week I started unpacking my office stuff and looked at all those tech books. Just the sight of them turned my stomach. That's when I realized the chapter was closed. That part of my life was over. I wasn't saving the books to take to my next programming job, or as reference. I needed to take a stand and prove to the universe that I was closing that door and ready for The Next Big Thing in my life. The thought came to me - sell the books. Get rid of them. Release them into the wild - let them go.

I went onto Amazon.com, where I'd sold a book here or there from my own library in the past, and I sat and listed 16 tech books. Within an hour one had sold! I saw the Sold! Ship Now! email in my inbox and my heart skipped several beats! I was so excited! I realized I had no idea what to do next!

Scampering out to the office supply store, buying up some bubble mailers, hastily refreshing myself on the Amazon shipping guidelines, printing out the packing slip and cutting off the address portion and driving to the post office to wait in line and pay for postage and voila - my book was on its way to the new owner. Someone who needed it. Someone who was still in The Game and needed to know which commands to use in Cold Fusion and how to hook up their database to their website. I was hooked.

More books sold.

earthdad suggested that I go around the area looking in stores and at garage sales for books to sell but I thought that was ridiculous, who would want old books found in those places. What I didn't realize is that books are everywhere, all around us. It takes study and experience and knowledge to start seeing the ones with value and understanding which ones you want and which you don't want.

This is the nuts and bolts part. There is much more that is nuts and bolts. Many good people have written books and blogs and posts describing their own process and their nuts and bolts approach to business. That's not what this blog is about, essentially. It's about what I've learned that goes beyond the business model, beyond the process, beyond the physical actions. Selling online or any other job or any other part of life has another dimension to it - a spiritual one. An unseen one. One that involves energy and mystery and coincidence and signs that point us in the right way if we're willing to watch for them. That's what I want to write about - that mystery.