Losing Your Job Can Make You Happy -- Eventually

Joann M. Weiner

Contributor

Posted:

01/13/10

How could anyone honestly say that the best thing that ever happened was getting fired, especially when 15 million Americans are unemployed and nearly 1 million more are so discouraged about their job prospects that they have given up looking for work? Yet that hopeful sentiment is exactly what I heard while driving home Tuesday afternoon when I caught the last minutes of an interview with a remarkably honest woman.

The woman is Mika Brzezinski, author of "All Things at Once." Four years ago, she was fired from her dream job at CBS on her 39^th birthday. Perhaps because she knows how the future turned out, Brzezinski can look back on that potentially career-ending firing and say that "the best thing that ever happened to me was the experience of getting fired" -- as she did on National Public Radio's "Tell Me More."

Of course, in 2006, Brzezinski had no idea that in 2010 she would be a successful media personality as co-host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" with Joe Scarborough. (Ironically, Scarborough took over the program when its former host, Don Imus, lost his job, resigning in disgrace over his racial comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team.) It's more likely that she thought her career was over. As she told The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, after working for 10 years at a place where she had given her "heart and soul," at her age she felt that many people were likely thinking "What's wrong with her?"

That story rings true for many Americans today, as one out of 10 is out of work. With the typical unemployment spell now lasting more than 29 weeks, many people may be wondering "What's wrong with me?" and "Will I ever get a job?" Maybe not, at least not like the one they had. As the Wall Street Journal reported, if you worked in construction or manufacturing or finance, your job may never come back.

Yet, despite this dismal news, it may help to consider the fates of other Americans who have recently been the equivalent of fired -- Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. Months after she failed in her bid for the presidency, Clinton was offered the position of secretary of state. And although she hesitated to take the jpb, reportedly due in part to concerns about her husband, Clinton accepted the role and, by nearly all accounts, has performed admirably. Likewise, Palin lost the vice presidency in 2008 and suffered through the humiliation of her daughter's ex-boyfriend baring his soul and much more in the media. Yet she recently landed a position as a commentator on Fox News. Palin may never have dreamed that she would get such a job, but it's one heck of a platform for her to make her views known.

Likewise, Brzezinski was not giving advice to the 15.3 million Americans who are out of work when she said on the "Today" show that everyone faces challenges in life and that losing a job is an "opportunity to show them [your kids] what you are made of." But, since millions of Americans watch that program every morning, perhaps they did come away with a more hopeful outlook on their future job prospects than they had the day before.

Can losing your job make you happy? While considering how to end this piece, I watched the season premiere of "American Idol" with my kids (as I, of course, continued to work). How fitting to hear Simon Cowell, the show's caustic judge, tell Mere Doyle, a 24-year-old retail sales clerk who sang Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart," that "you're going to look back on this failure as the best thing that happened in your life." I'm not sure that Mere, who said that she had done "hundreds of auditions" and treats every one of them "as if my life depended on it," agrees with Simon. Although Mere may not measure up to Janis Joplin today, one day she may become a successful singer in her own right and look back on that failed "AI" audition as the best thing that ever happened to her -- even if right now she's drowning in the same tears that flooded Mika Brzezinski when she, too, thought her dream had been shattered.

With luck, the 7 million Americans who have lost their jobs since the recession began two years ago will one day look back from the vantage point of a new job and be happy with where life's twists and turns took them.