Purgatory is located at the Chrysler Building and has a magnificent view of midtown Manhattan and Long Island City, Queens. It is close to heaven and that precise location is intended to keep the American Dream alive. If purgatory has something to do with a transition to a new life, it certainly works. After three hours of orientation, we left energetic, positive, confident and with better skills to present ourselves without betraying our values. I guess we left oriented.
Most of my purgatory mates came from the financial world. The same way financial companies expanded during the speculation days is the way they are shrinking today. Some of this souls of sorry -which is what this stupid production based world makes them look like- worked more than 20 years in the same company, when resumes used to be mailed or in the most up-to-date scenario faxed; and had the "Supplied upon request" line in the References field -something I learned is old fashioned, so you better take it out from your resume.
Besides its mission to get people careers back in track, purgatory, as any other social gathering dealing with adversity and challenge, has a therapeutic function. After we shared our laid off experiences and introduce ourselves, everyone got caught by this feeling of "What do I really want to do with my life?" instead of the "How am I going to get a new job?" Probably some had that feeling before but still do purgatory, as part of the "try it all" mentality one has when owns time and masters destiny. We also do it because we don't have to pay a single.
There is this girl really determined to change life and be true to herself. When she mentioned that ultimately she has discovered what she really wants to do, she has this look one has when finds that sex is such a great thing and that many things in life can be like sex. I just have to say: "Good, keep it sexy!"
As for if Change is in the right path I have to say YES. After an exercise on settling which personal values were more and least important, a large part of the group considered Autonomy, Lifestyle and Service as more important values while nobody picked Wealth as one. And I believe them because at the end of the day, and paraphrasing Whitman, people know better what to do during failure than when it comes to success. Still, those are interesting answers if you realize most of the people were in the financial world.
