My husband earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from Penn State last month. For the past seven years he has been a full-time graduate student working toward the goal of becoming a chemistry professor. Instead of feeling a sense of relief at this accomplishment, he feels as if his degree is worthless. Over the past eight months he's applied for more than seventy jobs and hasn't received a job offer yet. Thus far he's been ranked one of the top three candidates at two universities and one of the top two candidates at another college. A few days ago when he was sharing his feelings with me, I reminded him that we have so much to be thankful for such as a loving marriage and three precious children. A job is important, particularly since I resigned from my job in January to become a stay-at-home mom, but it's not one of the most important things in our life. Yesterday I found out through Facebook that a nurse who worked with me while each of my three children were in the NICU from 2008 to 2012 became a widow on April 4th. Her husband was five months younger than my husband, and our husbands grew up only a couple of miles away from each other. Contemplating what she and her two daughters have been going through the past two months really put our job search frustrations into perspective. It's very easy to allow our circumstances to determine our perspective, but I experience more joy and contentment when I use perspective to interpret my circumstances.
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