a pen and a cup of coffee

The other day, I was listening to an interview with Jason Reitman about his new movie Up in the Air (which I recommend highly-both the movie and the interview). In it, he said that among all the unemployed people he interviewed for the film, the biggest concern was not money but meaning. "When I leave here," they'd say to him, "where am I supposed to go; what am I supposed to do?"

I guess that struck a chord with me because those are the very questions I have been asking myself since losing my job nearly a year and a half ago. Because most of what I do on any given day goes wholly unrewarded and largely unnoticed, it's hard for me to feel I have anything of value to contribute; anything that would be of worth to anyone else.

"Do you know what I miss most about working," I said to a friend not long ago. "Dressing up and walking around the office with a pen and a cup of coffee."

"A pen and a cup of coffee?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "The pen means that there was something in my day worth writing down; something worth remembering."

"And the coffee," she said.

"The coffee means there was someone--in a meeting, around a conference table, in the break room--who might remember what it was."