This is for those who have felt like everything has been against them. For those whom despite their best and most genuine efforts find the cards seem to be stacked, time after time, and not in their favor.
As if the gods themselves have been playing a crude joke of ill fortune upon you and you, being resourceful (or stubborn) have taken the opportunity to power through and allow the process to hammer and fold you into a new version of yourself.
It is a deceptively simple method, so much so that some may balk and scoff at such a suggestion, but some of you know full well that the world is made of stories and just how powerful they truly are.
Well, if it’s been too shitty for too long then the book of Job is the book for you.
Rebuked by his friends, forced to deal with unexpected and tragic loss of loved ones, property, social standing, and livelihood, and made to suffer ailments of the body. This casts a pretty wide net, which is why this is recommended for those who have had an exceptional streak of ill happenings despite corrective efforts. This is especially effective is you’ve actually learned and grown because of your experiences rather than allowing them to drag you into a state of despair. Remember, you can’t have an upswing if you’re still one with despair. For this to work you need to be ready for the rough patch to end, really and truly, and leave despair behind.
Read the book of Job in a ceremonial fashion, that is to say not casually or surrounded by distractions. Maybe several times on different occasions. Identify your own misfortunes with Job’s. Let the feeling of each calamity that happened to him connect with one of your own personal despairs or misfortunes. This can serve as a purge, of sorts, by recognizing the archetypal nature of the shape of this narrative and realizing it’s something others have gone through, too. Likely so much so that it needed to become a story. Stories have a life and will of their own and this one wound up in one of the most well-known collections of stories of all time. Probably for reasons.
Sure, Job’s misfortunes might have been worse than our own, but that’s not what we’re doing here. We are not comparing Job’s trials with our own. Suffering doesn’t work that way. Suffering is about thresholds of experience and what could be world ending to one could be a walk in the park to another- We are all our own unique universes and it usually isn’t helpful to compare experiences or suffering in that way. What we are doing here is noticing that sometimes streaks of bad shit can happen to good people no matter what they do or don’t do. We are harmonizing with the reality that that happens.
Why?
Well, because regardless of any moralistic or ethical coating we want to slap on the story about fairness or our feelings regarding the unsettling nature of the wager at the center of it, the important part for us as practitioners is that when Job’s misfortune finally ended Job was greatly rewarded.
Once we’re synced up with our sad friend, though reading and contemplation, we can begin to turn things around because that is the natural conclusion of anyone locked-in to the mythical framework of the Job story. If you’re already in the shit, why not consider following a well-trodden path out of it?
Job’s path led to a restoration of lands and kingdoms, doubling of his previous wealth, ten children, and 140 more years to live a happy life.
Once we can empathize wholeheartedly with his misfortunes, then we can begin to read his comeback arc often, skipping all the rough parts and jumping straight to the rewards and chanting as we go about our day, “And the Lord restored the kingdoms of Job.”
And the chanting should continue until conditions improve.
Let him carry you upon his back, out of the dolorous valley and into your shining kingdom that awaits, beyond the desolation of trial and tribulation.
Amen.