​Ron Charles, former book editor at The Washington Post

 

     Since I was laid off from The Washington Post on Feb. 4, things have been going
pretty well, depending on the hour. In the afternoons, I’m an independent writer with
a dream. At 3:47 a.m., I’m an unemployed journalist with a mortgage. The first week, I lost 10 pounds. It turns out that being laid off is like Ozempic administered via email.

     So far, I’ve been doing a Modified George Costanza: I pretend I’m employed but
working from home. It’s a Covid-lockdown vibe — upbeat but anxious. Surely, this will
be over soon! Despite the freedom thrust upon me, I’m still reviewing a novel every week as I’ve done for almost three decades. I’m reminded of the tiger that was finally released from the zoo but kept pacing back and forth in front of invisible bars.
     A few days ago, Dawn left for school muttering, “How have you managed to make
unemployment more work than having a job?” Having been eliminated or, as the Brits would say, made redundant, I feel like a pilot determined to keep flying after the wings fall off. It is, of course, all about scrambling away from the lip of irrelevance.
     I’m not so cocooned in self-pity that I can’t see my relative good fortune. Many folks laid off from The Post — and a thousand companies beyond — are facing far more
devastating challenges. But my sympathy for them can’t slake my own thirst for
purpose.
     It’s always a little disappointing to discover that one’s deeply personal existential crisis is, in fact, in perfect sync with pop culture, like the time I heard myself quoted on
Thirtysomething. But there can be comfort in that chorus. It’s striking that there are two new nonfiction titles on the subject of mattering.
     Journalist Jennifer Breheny Wallace has published Mattering: The Secret to a Life of
Deep Connection and Purpose. Wallace’s approach is standard self-help: anecdotal and relentlessly earnest with pull quotes and a slate of jargon to reframe an ancient yearning as a solvable problem. Be a cornerman! Build a mattering core! There are even formulae:
Feeling Valued + Adding Value = Mattering
     And yet. Maybe it’s just the severance talking, but something about Wallace’s
undeniable sincerity got to me. In her conversations with a firefighter, a sanitation
worker, a farmer, executives, educators, parents, and retired people, she’s genuinely
curious about how they’ve come to understand that they matter.
     Of course, she offers practical steps, too, like maintaining a personal “impact file” for
thank-you notes from people you’ve helped. But her best advice for feeling more loved
is to love more.

     “No matter what kind of upheaval we’re facing,” she writes, “be it job loss, retirement,
empty nesting, a shifting world, or some other destabilizing event, the surest way to
sustain our own sense of mattering is to focus on making others feel like they matter.”