A Hand Up Not a Hand Out

A second social program I want to look at is Social Security Disability. I’m on it myself right now. I hope it’s a hand up to me and not a hand out.

I don’t subscribe to the “world owes me a living theory.” I believe that come the day when I can work again I should go out looking for work and I’m in the process of doing such right now.

One time, I heard a fellow SSDI consumer say, “The government will simply have to take care of me for the rest of my life.” And that attitude holds a lot of people back from actively trying to rehabilitate themselves. I believe that I’m redeemable and I’m hoping and I actually believe that I will find work when I solve the problems with my psychology.

I finished the writing course in just over four months and I had one year and five months to complete it and I received an A in the course. I really don’t want to waste any time. I’m fed up of the situation I’m in.

Every IQ and psychometric test I take says that I should be a world-beater. I’ve taken a number of these tests and they revealed I actually have over five different career paths open to me, including being a writer, a psychologist an architect, a private investigator and a sculptor. So theoretically, I should be gainfully employed and probably quite wealthy.

I really think that writing is putting my best foot forward so that’s what I’m concentrating on for the meantime. I’ll also need to get some clothes and I’ll need to make myself look marketable for a boss to hire me. I need to come off as savvy as I am and I do have considerable writing skills. First impressions count and you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.

In retrospect, I’ve had to rethink a lot of my early beliefs in life. I had to back off the idea that Orthodox Judaism was good for me. In truth, it’s caused me a lot of aggravation that was unnecessary,

My involvement in religion has caused me a lot of problems and years of time that I could have spent working on my university studies and I could have graduated at the age when most college graduates go out looking for work.

Time is precious and so are the ways you spend your time. I once had an interview with a company that asked me what my SAT scores were. I took those exams many years ago. I told them I had a Master’s degree despite the fact that I didn’t get the minimum grade they wanted on the mathematics section. I told them, that I got the math requirement in graduate school waived because I took an exam that I passed. They simply informed me, “What you did then [in high school] counted.” That statement was the end of story.

You have to be careful how you invest your time and money. Both are extremely precious and time is money, don’t be fooled that it isn’t. So invest both wisely. If you get just that from this document, I’ll be happy. And hopefully, the time I will still be on SSD is going to end with my successful return to work, partially because of the sales of this piece.