I've been thinking a lot lately about work -- and how it fits into life.
I have to work. Well, if I want to eat and feed my kids and husband, and get them a great education, and dress them, and provide a safe, warm home for them, I have to work.
And I'm good at my work -- actually really good at my work. But my work is not my life, and I don't want my life defined by my work.
At the same time, my work is in a continuum of a pretty good career --an evolution, maturation and development of a specific point of view and expertise that people will pay for -- pay to learn from (in the form of being employees) and pay for the execution of (in the form of clients or employers).
In the end however, my work is helping others achieve their goals -- business goals, personal goals, development & career goals. Because when we do our job right, our clients succeed.
So a career spent in service to others for business advancement.
But I don't want my LIFE to be my CAREER. So I CHOOSE work that allows me to provide by doing what I'm good at in a WAY that provides the FLEXIBILITY to not ONLY work. So a career that serves my life.
This is not simple. Someone's going to have to show me how to do this and not have to spend energy at work, because I don't see it. And frankly, you have to be pretty damn good at what you do to have a career that fits INTO a broader life and not a life that is driven only by a career. And probably, if you have to bring home the bacon (and PS if I had the bacon my time would be spent in service elsewhere, but I don't have the money and that is another rocks are hard moment) you have to be good, be respected and be highly proficient and efficient to dictate this.
So in the end you have to have a successful career to be able to have a life that accommodates something beyond it.
And I find, I need to be consistently vigilant about the relationship between the two to be happy.
Because, water is wet, and nothing I do will change that.
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