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Career or Characteristic?
The other day I met my uncle's new girlfriend for the first time. We are, what I affectionately refer to as "hillWilliams", while she is from New Jersey. I have an unusual relationship with my Uncle (who is actually Grandma Vi's youngest brother), and I was completely thrilled to hear her call him by his last name and give him almost as much of a hard time as I do. I can't say I know much about her, but I definitely got a good impression about her as an individual.
There was one subject that never came up. At one point I almost asked her what she did for a living, but at my uncle's age and the place where he lives, she is likely to not be working for a multitude of reasons. Besides, being un-employed myself, I don't particularly like talking about work related issues. The problem isn't so much that I am not working, but that I understand how employment affects the perception of others.
What we do as a career makes up a significant chunk of our lives. That's part of the reason we push our young people to go to college, and ask, even if only as a joke, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" We encourage jobs that make the kind of money we expect to need in order to be "comfortable" as well as something personally enjoyable, due to the amount of actual time spent on our work life.
As a society we have accepted this ideology as "normal" and "good". In order to receive goods and services, including necessary nourishment, medical aid and housing, one must have a source of income. Ideally that source of income is uniquely suitable to you and serving your personal needs as well. Obviously that means you are not flipping burgers or waiting tables.
Then again, what's so bad about those jobs? Waiting tables is hard work, but very satisfying when you take those few extra seconds to relate to your customers, or take an unhappy client and use your abilities and situation to evoke a smile. Sometimes it's not in how important your job is to others that makes it significant, but what you do with it. Unfortunately, that is not the perception of society. In acknowledging the need for income, we also assign prestige to the method of income. Although the salaries are not necessarily proportional to the importance of the job; teachers are still considered more valuable than sports stars, income is still a signifier of worth.
Why have we made the value of money so important? Just because a thing is a necessary part of life, doesn't mean it should have significance beyond the ethereal matters that truly satisfy. Having money can buy more things that will bring joy for a moment, but once the stuff is gone, what is left? Is the memory of the joy of the thing as great as the interaction with the thing itself? Maybe memories driving that hot little sports car can make you smile over and over, but it means very little until you share it with someone else.
So if money shouldn't be the catalyst behind your career choice, what should be? This is where I want to caution you. I am not really sure it matters what you choose as a career. When you have been hired by someone else, you are at their mercy. You have to follow their rules and guidelines or risk being fired. Often these are similar from place to place within the same field, so if you leave because you find your work environment morally objectionable, you should be aware that you might well find yourself in such a situation in other places. Maybe it's the other individuals with whom you work that cause you to become the kind of grouchy life-hater you abhor. You cannot control other people, so such exposure may be a reason to leave, only to encounter it again and again.
So you decide to open your own business, where you can be in control of your work environment. Along with the additional intricacies of business ownership, you are still going to deal with other people. Even the hiring and firing of your own employees is dictated by governmental standards. If you fire and employee because of personality conflicts, you are likely to have to deal with further conflicts of unemployment, possible legal battles and, worse for a small business, negative gossip. When you are the owner, you hold the responsibility to others, and that can cause even more focus on finances.
Working for "the man" or for yourself, is immaterial, and for all I know, learning how to maintain a physical standard might very well be the point of this existence. As necessary as that might be, I think most people would agree that the point is a much higher purpose, even if we cannot define what that purpose is. These are the things that become important when you are not working, which makes me wonder if we, as a society, have our priorities completely skewered.
And though that is not a surprising conclusion, it screams of a need to make a change. All change happens one individual at a time. When I refrained from asking Chris what she did as a career, I started this change. Even if her conscious mind doesn't pick up that she was never asked any question about where her money came from, I am aware of it. I am making a concentrated effort to make this existence about something other than finances. Maybe it's easier for someone who has had to give up all financial reasoning to God to make the Creator the highest priority, but I can tell you it's not easy.
It's never easy to buck the system. Change is uncomfortable for humans as a species, though to varying degrees. Don't worry about the big picture; take care of this moment. You make the choices based on your priorities as each moment presents itself. As others see you in change, they will learn by your example. We have no control over how others think, but we can teach others that they too can become more than what they were cultured to be.
There was one subject that never came up. At one point I almost asked her what she did for a living, but at my uncle's age and the place where he lives, she is likely to not be working for a multitude of reasons. Besides, being un-employed myself, I don't particularly like talking about work related issues. The problem isn't so much that I am not working, but that I understand how employment affects the perception of others.
What we do as a career makes up a significant chunk of our lives. That's part of the reason we push our young people to go to college, and ask, even if only as a joke, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" We encourage jobs that make the kind of money we expect to need in order to be "comfortable" as well as something personally enjoyable, due to the amount of actual time spent on our work life.
As a society we have accepted this ideology as "normal" and "good". In order to receive goods and services, including necessary nourishment, medical aid and housing, one must have a source of income. Ideally that source of income is uniquely suitable to you and serving your personal needs as well. Obviously that means you are not flipping burgers or waiting tables.
Then again, what's so bad about those jobs? Waiting tables is hard work, but very satisfying when you take those few extra seconds to relate to your customers, or take an unhappy client and use your abilities and situation to evoke a smile. Sometimes it's not in how important your job is to others that makes it significant, but what you do with it. Unfortunately, that is not the perception of society. In acknowledging the need for income, we also assign prestige to the method of income. Although the salaries are not necessarily proportional to the importance of the job; teachers are still considered more valuable than sports stars, income is still a signifier of worth.
Why have we made the value of money so important? Just because a thing is a necessary part of life, doesn't mean it should have significance beyond the ethereal matters that truly satisfy. Having money can buy more things that will bring joy for a moment, but once the stuff is gone, what is left? Is the memory of the joy of the thing as great as the interaction with the thing itself? Maybe memories driving that hot little sports car can make you smile over and over, but it means very little until you share it with someone else.
So if money shouldn't be the catalyst behind your career choice, what should be? This is where I want to caution you. I am not really sure it matters what you choose as a career. When you have been hired by someone else, you are at their mercy. You have to follow their rules and guidelines or risk being fired. Often these are similar from place to place within the same field, so if you leave because you find your work environment morally objectionable, you should be aware that you might well find yourself in such a situation in other places. Maybe it's the other individuals with whom you work that cause you to become the kind of grouchy life-hater you abhor. You cannot control other people, so such exposure may be a reason to leave, only to encounter it again and again.
So you decide to open your own business, where you can be in control of your work environment. Along with the additional intricacies of business ownership, you are still going to deal with other people. Even the hiring and firing of your own employees is dictated by governmental standards. If you fire and employee because of personality conflicts, you are likely to have to deal with further conflicts of unemployment, possible legal battles and, worse for a small business, negative gossip. When you are the owner, you hold the responsibility to others, and that can cause even more focus on finances.
Working for "the man" or for yourself, is immaterial, and for all I know, learning how to maintain a physical standard might very well be the point of this existence. As necessary as that might be, I think most people would agree that the point is a much higher purpose, even if we cannot define what that purpose is. These are the things that become important when you are not working, which makes me wonder if we, as a society, have our priorities completely skewered.
And though that is not a surprising conclusion, it screams of a need to make a change. All change happens one individual at a time. When I refrained from asking Chris what she did as a career, I started this change. Even if her conscious mind doesn't pick up that she was never asked any question about where her money came from, I am aware of it. I am making a concentrated effort to make this existence about something other than finances. Maybe it's easier for someone who has had to give up all financial reasoning to God to make the Creator the highest priority, but I can tell you it's not easy.
It's never easy to buck the system. Change is uncomfortable for humans as a species, though to varying degrees. Don't worry about the big picture; take care of this moment. You make the choices based on your priorities as each moment presents itself. As others see you in change, they will learn by your example. We have no control over how others think, but we can teach others that they too can become more than what they were cultured to be.