Forgiving Both the Worker Ants and the Slacker Ants

I wrote the other day about how I spent over half a year attacking office jobs without any experience or skills, only to be repeatedly crushed, until I finally realized that if I didn't have the skills, I had to go and study.

But I couldn't take a vocational training course at Hello Work that lasted over three months at this point, and I didn't have the money to go to a private school.

Or so I thought, but then I read the notes of people who were also job hunting!
I found out that if you take Job Seeker Support Training, you can receive 100,000 yen per month if you meet the conditions.

Based on that information, I searched the Hello Work website, and there it was, there it was!
Job Seeker Support Training for business computers.
I meet the conditions too!

And when I took that information to Hello Work and had it explained to me, oh my, oh my!

Whether you take Job Seeker Support Training or Public Vocational Training, your unemployment benefits are extended until the school term ends.

"That's amazing..."
I found myself whispering to the counselor.

The Public Vocational Training's MOS preparation course seemed better suited to what I wanted to do than the Job Seeker Support Training's business computer course, so I was really glad they explained it to me properly.

I heard there's an interview to get into that course, so I don't know if I'll be accepted yet, but
first of all, I am grateful that I was able to get this far.

I am grateful to the person who wrote that note recently, and to the Hello Work counselor.
That's why I decided to write down this information today as well.

As long as you have even one day of benefits remaining, your unemployment benefits will be extended until the school term ends.

I think that's amazing.
How grateful I am.

To begin with, my salary at my previous job was low, so I didn't pay much into employment insurance.
Of course, even 1,000 yen a month adds up to a large sum, but compared to the benefits I am receiving now, isn't it a mere pittance?

The other day, the counselor at the Hello Work disability corner said to me,
"You're applying for a lot of jobs, aren't you?"

I felt embarrassed and
"I'm just having trouble getting hired..."
I mumbled incoherently.

Then, they said,
"This is all about fate. If you keep at it properly like this, you will definitely connect with a place that is meant for you at the right time."
They said it slowly and kindly.

I was so grateful that tears came to my eyes.
My voice might have been trembling when I said, "Thank you."

Even just this experience is a blessing.
How significant it is for me right now to have someone say such heartfelt words to me.

Perhaps it is also because I was convinced that I had fallen into the exact opposite situation.

I misinterpreted words someone said to me about my job search and we had a falling out.
No, we didn't have a falling out.
I was the one who got angry unilaterally. Because of my own assumptions.
I even said, "I won't see you again, take care."

The root cause was me myself.
I was the one who made fun of myself for not being able to find a job.
I often do things like this.
I get really sick of myself every time I see myself talking about how deeply hurt I am while laughing.

So the other person responded lightly to that. That's all it was.
I interpreted that as them saying, "There's no way someone like you would be hired anywhere."

That person was someone I was close with at my previous job, but they sent a calm reply to my angry, goodbye LINE message. And they said,
"I feel responsible for the fact that you had to quit."
They told me they hoped my job search would go well.

I quit my previous job for various reasons.
To put it simply, I got seriously angry at people who wouldn't do their work, and I took responsibility for my anger and quit.
I thought that as long as someone like me was there, this place wouldn't get any better.

Even now, my chest hurts when I remember that.
Having lived this long (Amichama, 38), I know the patterns I tend to fall into, but I believe that pattern was manifested in a way that was not good for many parties involved.

The student I scolded ended up quitting the next day.
Even if that student's behavior was truly terrible, I still shouldn't have scolded them, and
as for the other younger person who snapped, I think I just had to accept that they were that type of person to begin with.

In any organization, it is natural to have both those who work hard and those who take it easy.
I often hear the story that there are always 20% of slacker ants in a colony, and it is precisely because those ants exist that the species can survive.

If someone earning almost the same salary as me did that, it would be unbearable, but that feeling of it being unbearable is just my own ego, and in the end, the organization was running because that person was there too.

I hit a wall regarding the difficulty of accepting and forgiving others, and one could say I escaped from it by quitting.

But I think the one I really wanted to forgive was myself.
I couldn't forgive myself for getting angry. That's why I quit.

I learned for the first time that this had even affected someone I was close to, even now.
"I still feel a sense of helplessness that I couldn't create a path for you to continue."
They even said something like that to me.

Perhaps it is time for me to forgive myself.
If I do, maybe that person can be free too.

I must recognize more properly that I am kept alive within the love of others.

Even the words from the person at the Hello Work office are love.
I am helped by such things every day.

I tend to focus too hard on the love I give out, but
in truth, I am surely allowed to receive it.

If I do that, I might be able to forgive.
Both my flaws and my strengths.
Because I feel that I haven't even forgiven my own merits and virtues.

It is okay to connect to a nest where I can demonstrate the strengths of the ant that is me.

Gratitude and blessings to the world I have yet to see.
I will go on working today.