1.
You're not satisfied at work. A long-standing competitor comes along
and buys the company. Your new bosses offer a generous buyout or
a job at the same salary in a lower position on the totem pole.
What should you do?
Pocket the
buyout money and look for similar job immediately.
Use the money
to buy time to reevaluate your career options.
Stay at the
job and ride things out.
2. Your marriage is on the skids. You'd like to patch things up with
your spouse and make a new start, but he or she won't go in for
marriage counseling. You:
Go in for counseling yourself, hoping to find a better understanding
of your part in the situation.
Point out ways in which he or she might change.
Take off on a vacation.
3. Halloween is your daughter's favorite holiday. She loves to dress
up in a costume and pretend she's a storybook heroine. You're all
set for trick-or-treating when she comes down with a bad cold. You
celebrate the holiday instead by:
Not answering the doorbell and staying in bed.
Putting on your costumes and giving out candy to other trick-or-treaters.
Promise your daughter a special outing to make up for missing
out on Halloween.
4. You're passionate about helping animals, but caring for your three
kids leaves little time for your four-legged friends. Seeing an
opening for a foster parent at the local animal shelter makes you
want to refocus and make your own dreams a priority. So you:
Daydream about the opportunity, but assume you won't have the
time
Decide to take the job and ask your family to support your decision.
Go to the shelter and adopt a dog.
5. Your family is reeling from the shock of hearing about your favorite
niece's suicide. Although the grief is overwhelming, you'd like
to pull something positive out of the tragedy. You discover that
in recent years she was an advocate for the homeless. You go through
a long grieving process and then:
Help other family members with the loss and move on to more positive
things.
Donate all your niece's clothes to the nearest homeless shelter
in an effort to keep her memory alive.
Feel your emotions deeply and find some meaning from the situation
by taking whatever time you have available and continuing your niece's
work with the homeless.
6. You've been working at the same secure job for the last 15 years.
You're unhappy, but the work is easy, the money good and you have
a family that counts on you for financial support. You and your
coworkers joke about being trapped in "golden handcuffs." You've
just rediscovered your love of good literature and can't stop dreaming
about finding a literature-related job. Here are your choices:
Join a book club and accept your job situation.
Start teaching a literature class at the local junior college,
hoping it will work into another job.
Wait until you retire to pursue your dream.
7. Your 45-minute commute to work is a bore. You're tired of listening
to music, audio books and talk radio. It's the only time you have
during the day to reflect on your life and you feel like it's being
wasted. Since you can't change the commute, how can you make better
use of that time?
Make a mental list of all the positive aspects of your life and
use the time commuting to figure out how to show appreciation to
the people involved.
You get a cell phone and conduct business calls in the car hoping
to shorten your workday and lessen your commute time.
You buy a new car thinking it will make the commute more pleasant.
8. Sunday is the day you and your son visit your mother at her nursing
home. The last time you were there you noticed how envious one of
the other residents was of all the fun your family was having. When
you inquire about this gentleman, the social worker tells you that
he's over 100 years old, in good health and rarely gets visitors.
You have an irresistible urge to bring joy into this elderly man's
life, so you:
Find out what he likes to eat and bring it on your next visit.
Contact one of his family members and let him or her know how
lonely he is.
Invite him to spend some time with your son and your mother during
one of your visits.
9. You come from a large family. Holidays are a juggling act when it
comes to meeting everyone's needs. Traveling is tough since the
birth of your new baby. Truthfully, you'd like to spend this Thanksgiving
with your husband and kids and wait until Christmas for a large
family gathering. You feel guilty about it and are afraid to tell
your sister. So you:
Get up your courage and tell her what you really want to do this
year.
Swallow how you feel and go anyway.
Let another family member tell your sister how you feel.
