The friends of a man who was thrown out of work into unemployment asked, "Why should this evil happen to him? He is so upright in character and so scrupulous not to harm others. Yet he has been without work for the past three months and there is none in sight!" This is one way, the commonest way, of looking at the matter. But the habitual attitude towards events is often an inferior one. It is the ego's attitude. It is possible to regard unemployment from another and superior standpoint, a more impersonal and less egoistic one. For this question, like many others, is part of the larger and ultimate question, "Why am I here on earth?" Only when the answer to this second one is correctly found will the answer to the first one be correctly found. The unemployed man will see his situation not as an evil to be shunned but as an experience to be studied. If he does this calmly and properly, he may find that certain deficiencies in himself have to be supplied, or faults remedied, or capacities developed. With the acceptance of such a discovery, the lack of work will go and a cycle of more fruitful activity than ever before will come. For the Infinite Intelligence which placed him here also provided the necessary conditions for his existence. Where these conditions are not immediately favourable or discoverable, that circumstance does not nullify this statement, for then it is intended to educe his latent resources, to force him to make the efforts needed to develop his character and intelligence, to stimulate the growth of his energies, capacities, and qualities.
-- Notebooks Category 13: Human Experience > Chapter 1 : Situation > # 44
