While it has been a little bit of a roller coaster year for me, I have many things to be thankful for. I wanted to just take a little space here to wish everyone a happy, healthy and safe holiday season and a very Happy New Year.

First and foremost, thanks to my awesome family, who has supported and helped me through a lot this year. My parents in particular, they have been there for me through a lot of the emotions of my job loss, and some small successes during the past year. My older sister and her husband, who were first in the family to know of my situation. My other siblings have been very supportive as well.

This job loss has been something of a humbling experience for me and it’s made me look at things in a different light, as well as look at other avenues for earning some income, which included very short contract positions I’ve had the chance to work lately.

I am thankful for the opportunity to volunteer for an organization that I have a strong belief and faith in, Southwest Job Network. I believe in their methods and mission to help valley job seekers return to the workforce quicker, by providing a forum where SJN brings in guest speakers, and industry experts, to help teach their job search curriculum, which was revamped earlier this year. This is a 100% all volunteer organization, filled with wonderful people promoting a great cause. They offer resume reviews, and networking opportunities as well.

I am thankful for the many connections I made through this year, from the people I met as I began my job search, to the people I met last week at a couple of networking events. Thank you for inspiring me, encouraging me, bending an ear when needed, and really listening, offering feedback, and helping me move in a positive direction.

I’m thankful for the new friendships I’ve forged, and the old ones I’ve re-kindled.

I’m thankful for advice given, even if it wasn’t what I wanted to hear at the time.

I’m thankful for the opportunities I’ve had in both mainstream and social media, and being able to speak about my experience in the job search, my blogging, and other forms of social media.

I also thank you, my readers, whether you come directly to the site or as a result of a search online seeking information to help you in your job search, or having set up a subscription through an RSS reader to get my posts as they are published.

What are you thankful for this holiday season?

-Martin

This entry was posted on 12/21/2009 at 14:05. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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