J O B

Perhaps it's a cultural thing. Perhaps it's human nature. We define ourselves by our work choices. I'm a teacher. I'm a doctor. I'm a stay-at-home mom. I'm a nurse. I'm self employed. I'm unemployed. I'm between jobs. All statements laced with emotion, undercurrent. 

There is a lot of chatter about "doing what you love."  But what does that mean? We can't all quit our jobs and be actors and singers and artists and professional athletes and inventors. 

Sometimes I don't love what I do at work. There is a lot of filing and red tape and organizing that is not fun to me. And I feel like I am not impacting lives like I did when I was a teacher. - I am a school district program administrator  - Of course the truth is I am impacting more lives, just not directly. The way I do my job impacts hundreds of students and lots of teachers. But that is hard to remember on days that I have to do the parts of my job that I don't enjoy. So I have been considering going back to teaching or looking for a school administrator job. Something in the trenches. Do what you love. But my job has so many many perks and so many opportunities to create systems that help and protect the weak that I just can't justify leaving it. So rather than "do what I love" I'm going to work on "loving what I do."  Look for upcoming posts to monitor my success or lack thereof.