Before the recession I spent 11 years in the residential homebuilding industry.
I say this so that you understand I was doing the same thing for a long time.
In the BCR time (Before Current Recession), this was a good thing.
Time in an industry was synonymous with experience.
Experience gave a person a wealth of knowledge to draw from.
Knowledge prepared that individual to adapt in times of change or crisis.
Here's the catch: Those skills of adaptation, that knowledge, the experience that took years to accumulate became worthless overnight.
What good is experience, when the industry that you worked in ceased to exist? What good is knowledge when the framework that it is based on has been torn asunder? Even worse, the skills and experience of the past become a plasticized skin, a mold that rigidly wants to maintain its shape.
In short, the past makes you resistant to change.
But somewhere within that mold lies our greatest strength.
Adaptation.
There is within each of us the ability to change.
We cannot forget the past, but we can let it go.
We can take our experience and our knowledge and use them to shape our future.
The next question is what do we do now? Initially I tried to stay within construction, but I realized that it was necessary to look farther afield.
In my searches I have found a few opportunities but every now and again, something comes up that makes me take notice.
Whenever I can find good work that does not force me to spend thousands of dollars in materials or training and allows me to use skills that are common to us all, I will share them with you.