My Job Description - Take Care of Myself

It fascinates me when people ask, “What do you do for a living?”

What happens when someone is working more than one job?  Or pursuing higher education along with having a job to pay the bills?

I’d like to answer, “Take care of myself.”

Instead I usually explain I spent years teaching elementary-age kids and I’m retired. 

The problem with the easy way out is I don’t believe what I accomplished in the past is something I can rest my laurels on now. I’m proud of my past career, but what I do as a retired person has value too.

The pressure of explaining “Making a living,” could just be in my head. If I feel inferior to a working person then I believe I’m less important or what I do is less valuable because it has no monetary value. Less viable.  Neither of these are true.  I consider being a musician, writer, parent, daughter, sister, friend and community member valuable. As is taking care of myself.

I don’t like the words, “Making a living” because I have a son who works several jobs so he can pursue his opera career and a daughter who took on various jobs while she completed her dissertation.  Their lives are never simply “making a living”, but bills have to pay so they can follow their vision of what they ultimately want to do. 

The trouble with labeling what we did or do for a living is the person questioning us is labeling who we are in relation to a paying job.  I do it myself. But, maybe if we can avoid getting sucked into this trap. 

For example, when I was with a young woman this weekend, I asked her.  She told me she was working in a child-care place in Ann Arbor.  I thought, “Hmmm, how can she make a living working in child-care?”

When my friend joined us he asked if she was a student. I found out she was pursuing higher education, but needed the job in day care to afford school expenses while still living with her parents. 

If “Living” is what we do when we work and make money, what do the other hours in a day mean to our life?

I wish I had considered some of these items as a HUGE part of “Making a living” when I was younger as I do now:

1.  Adventures and play-time

2.  Raising a family, participating in community

3.  Developing creative interests and continuing athletic pursuits or hobbies.

4.  Reading/Learning

5.  Staying healthy/getting healthy

6.  Sleep

I’ve promised myself I won’t ask people what they do for a living any more.  I can think of other ways to get to know someone without limiting their response. Better yet I could wait for them to ask me and force myself to say, “I take care of myself.”