SINGLE (with a kid), JOBLESS AND DROWNING E-Book

Kanimoli Ramaiah

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

This is my life journey - the hardest part; at 40 I was a single mother who had a kid to raise, huge debts, a life to live and I was jobless. There weren't any pre set formula to fall back upon. Reality hit harder than a truck would at the speed of 130 kilometers per hour.

What transpired in the subsequent 13 months have been recorded in this book. No economics class or commerce subject could have prepared one for such travails.

It was a time I discovered who were my true friends and what was my strength. It would be a lie if I say I had not contemplated suicide at the lowest point during the journey. I did but I decided to fight back with all I had - I had nothing left except the fighting spirit.

Hardest lessons learnt were about people who had basked in my suffering.  Greatest lesson learnt was that options are aplenty around us, it is up to us to grab what we can and pull ourselves out of the abyss.

I had emerged unscathed from that battle, wiser and most important of all - very shrewd.

I have recorded my 13 months' journey as a guide to those women who are in similar predicament. Believe me, there are ways to raise funds and continue your life, than to fall victim to anyone who is out to take a free ride on you!

Leseprobe

Kanimoli Ramaiah

SINGLE (with a kid), JOBLESS AND DROWNING

Kick Yourself Out of the Abyss Life Throws You Into!

This book is dedicated to all single mothers, jobless but with children to raise - there are ways to live through your predicament. You can choose to remain in the abyss life throws you into or kick yourself out using one or more tips from this book. BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Why I Wrote This Book

I started writing this book on my daughter, Abby’s, twelfth birthday after a full night of tears. Abby has always been an inspiration in my life.  My elder daughter was already nine when the ex in laws broached the topic of having another child, I was no longer interested as I had wanted to focus on chasing whatever dreams that my early marriage took away.

I got married at 26, right after graduating though I had big dreams of going to Paris to take up fashion designing. A chance meeting with my ex during a football match wrote the entire history differently. There I was on the 15th of June 2013 reminiscing on all that should have been done differently.

It was also the day that I decided to record my journey in the preceding one year, as I believed that somewhere around the world, there were many women like me who one day woke up and realized that they were single and drowning in debt while there were kids who needed to be educated and brought up. What more with the pandemic ravaging the world since 2020, more and more people, especially single mothers, find it difficult to put bread on the table.

This is my story, if it helps at least one person, the objective of writing it would have been achieved and this work is dedicated to my younger daughter, Abby, who was my inspiration throughout the twelve years I was a single mother – raising her all by myself.

This book was written in the Asian – Malaysian context to be specific and as I was a Hindu then; there were somethings that I believed strongly in life - things like rebirth and karma to name a few.

I believe each of us have our own journey in this birth and that journey has been determined even at the time of our birth. How we undertake to complete the journey, is in our hands.

As we experience each incident, we would be presented with multiple options, but ultimately it would narrow down to doing the right thing or doing things right. This concept will be seen throughout this book where doing the right thing will be the savior of the day, any day.

Mankind can be very arrogant; so was I. I was arrogant because I was flying high in my senior government role. Life was happening then suddenly one day that life evaporated. It was a conscious moral decision to leave that cushy job; to do the right thing.

If I had stayed on in the job, many would have lost their income. Being a single mother with only one kid, I figured that I was better off without a job than those who were earmarked to be sent packing who were mostly senior folks with kids in college and universities. Eventually, I discovered that I was right.

However, upon walking out of the job reality hit hard; I lost my arrogance but gained wealth of learning.

Introduction

 The reason I started writing this book was to share the stories of my struggles when I was jobless, single and had a kid to raise. I know mine was not the most extreme story; there were people with even more difficult predicaments. However, there were some things that I did right and managed to survive thirteen months without income. I had bills to pay, food to place on the table and a life to live with positive motivation to avoid rubbing off negativity to my second daughter and for a child that young to be de-motivated in life - that would have been disastrous.

My journey saw me walking down a path of discovery – about people, about my own mistakes and ego, path of realization – about the possibilities for survival which never occurred to me before, path of seeking – the answers that all the while I thought I had it all figured out and most importantly, path of reassessment – whether I needed whatever that was in my life for the future. That included people, priorities and possessions.

Life is a journey of learning; I learnt my lessons. You could also be a single mother like me, wondering how to proceed in life after losing your job and while having a houseful of kids. Read on to see if any of my tips may work for you. If they do, my purpose in writing this book would have been fulfilled.

You may need to adjust some of the tips/advice to suit your life, your geography and your situation. Please do if that is how it could work for you.

First Step – Stop Denying; Accept

One of man’s greatest assets is denial when adversity hits. We prefer to pretend that all is well when it is not. When the ceiling in my apartment above the kitchen cabinet started leaking I kept telling myself it must be something minor, nothing to worry and that it will work out by itself.

And one day it started `raining’ in my dry kitchen, flooding both the dry and wet kitchen floors. Then, I had no alternative but to call the Building Manager for help. Eventually, the problem was fixed but of course, after much effort and a superb lesson on acceptance that something needed to be fixed.

Losing my job was also similar. For months preceding the end of my contract, I was toying with the idea of taking a career break. But I had not come to a conclusion on that. As if planned by Fate, when I approached my new Boss to ask if my contract will be renewed, he just said that he will talk to me later about it. I felt a pang of pain in my heart as if something was telling me to expect bad news. But, as people go, I chose to say `all is well’ hoping the problem would fix itself.

Things were certainly not good since my new Boss arrived. My outgoing Boss asked me if I wanted to be promoted after her departure. I said no as I did not want to move into top management. I preferred to remain in operations where my heart was, while handling the clients who came to me for assistance on various matters. Being operational made me alive and I wanted that feeling to last.

So after going through many profile search and interviews, finally the CEO decided to hire the new Boss, who was bad news from day one. For one, he made himself sound larger than life. He apparently had spent four years abroad and everything that we did at the office or had been doing for years since the company came into existence, came under strong scrutiny. It was Texas syndrome to the core. We had to endure long hours of so called pep talk on how this was that big where I came from, that was how it was done where I came from. How civilization in other countries were far more advanced than in Malaysia. Endless.

The company staff was treated like manufacturing floor hands. My department was not spared either. It was when I heard that he had made a pact with the CEO to get rid of about seventeen top executives persons, I decided to do what I felt right doing – going against him, for the sake of the rest of the staff. Incidentally, my name was on the top of the list, so that meant I would be shown the exit first.

(As I found out later, my actions had ensured that no one was thrown out of the company after me, though some eventually left on their own accord).

Even at that time it did not hit me that losing my job would be disastrous at my age. Somehow, at that juncture, it seemed important that I should help the other sixteen people on the list as well as the others in the company who were there for many years – some were even pioneer staff.

So, when he started introducing idiotic practices from the God forsaken land that he was worshipping, practices that did not augur well in this country, I stood against him.

As expected on one 29th June, late evening he called me to his office and told me that my contract will not be renewed. Still it did not hit me that a long frustrating journey was awaiting me.

I coolly walked out of his office after telling him that I had wanted to leave before he decided not to renew my contract, which was eventually recorded in the Management Meeting minutes of the month. So, officially, it was I who left the company, not the other way around. Not a bad record, I suppose.