Mary Ellen Slayter at Smart Brief asked some folks to think about what we’ve seen and learned in 2009 and to write a brief summary of the last 12 months.

While I sincerely hope 2010’s summary will be brighter, here’s what I’ve seen a lot of this year: deep despair. Good people have lost jobs that they relied on to live an inflated lifestyle, and don’t have the energy, creativity, and just flat wherewithal to move on. They’re struggling, or, worse, they’ve stopped struggling. A friend described herself like this: “The worst part of losing my job is that I really lost who I am, who I guess I was. I loved that person, but I didn’t know it at the time.  I knew how to be CareerGirl and kill my goals every year. And now I don’t think I’ll ever be her again. I just don’t have the energy to figure out what’s next, I just try to get through the day.”

We’re in the thick of it. A lot of people are lost. We’re at the point where many have no hope at all. I’d love to say that it’s always darkest before the dawn, but my guess is that this is the longest night many in this generation have known. Sunrise isn’t for a while yet. My friend isn’t ready to take off her sweatpants and I don’t blame her one bit. As long as she can afford to wallow, I say let her wallow. But at some point the money, the patience, or the ice cream will run out.

Then what?

Then it’s time to stretch, open the door, and see what’s out there. Doesn’t mean the sun has come up, but I do see some people reaching blindly out to one another, and finding new ways of thinking about themselves, community, support, and work. I see parents who are no longer willing to work/commute 60 hours a week, because they’ve learned the value of free time with their kids after they lost their jobs. I see previously reluctant Gen X and Baby Boomers waking up to the power of online communities, and learning how to connect with others they may never meet in real life. I see Generation Y kids who are learning that maybe they won’t get a $60,000 a year job right when they graduate like their parents planned, but they can sure intern somewhere and learn about things they think are cool, and live with their not-so-bad parents for a bit. I see grown adults finally asking themselves what life would be like if they were more than just an extension of their company’s corporate brand, what they’d be willing to give up to live a life that works for them. And I see a lot of people getting away from the lie of the Prince Charming model of employment, that there’s some One Perfect Job/Career that they will love Forever and they’ll live/work together Happily Ever After.

Nobody knows what they’re doing, and that’s a really good thing. But I still sense a real unease, like we’re sure there’s a right way to do it and this isn’t it. Maybe the only problem is that we’re under the assumption that we’re not doing it right. There are no clear goals for CareerGirl to kill, but that doesn’t mean she can’t make up her own, and change them as often as she needs to, to begin designing a life for herself. She just has to get past that there’s not a Form 31B for that.

For those of us who are no longer in despair, let’s let this wandering around last a bit longer. Let’s settle in to inquiry and trying out new things. We’re learning how to live without a map, and without a light to read a map from. These are new skills, new thoughts, and we’ll make mistakes. Hopefully a lot of them. But in the end, we may find ourselves a new way of working, a new mindset around money and material goods, and a new philosophy around who we are and what’s most important, that will lead us to deeper contributions and more fulfilling life experiences in this brief journey called life.