Chris has been coaching me about my "career development." I wasn't planning on having a career (I don't plan, remember?) but apparently I was supposed to do that sometime in the last four and a half years. Hmm. Anyway, Husband Chris Shubert* said that I SHOULD NOT apply to jobs in the classified ads. What??? He said to apply where I want to work. I guess that does make sense. He also said that I need to take a few weeks and write a personal statement to find out what I want to do, and that will help me decide about graduate school and what I want to do. Oh, okay. I wanted to get a part-time job and study for the GRE, but Husband Chris Shubert said that is a bad idea. He doesn't think I should make a move that isn't going to further improve my career.
So now that you know what Chris thinks, I will tell you what I think. I don't think I will look back on my life when I am eighty and think, "Wow, I sure am glad that I went to grad school so I could make $30,000 more a year," or "I had a great career!" My life goals are not at all centered around a career. I want a JOB, not a CAREER. For now, anyway. I want to work so we can do fun things, like travel and buy shoes. I don't know what I want to do for the rest of my life! How can a twenty-three year old decide what to do FOREVER? Nah, that is not my style. Right now my approach for developing my career is trial-and-error. I don't know what I want to do, so I am going to try some things before I make a commitment. Chris said that approach is much like my approach at checkers. I stink at checkers because I don't evaluate all possible moves. I told him that I like playing checkers, but one day I might change my mind and want to play Scrabble. (I rock at Scrabble.) He didn't care much for my response to his checkers analogy.
Chris and I have different perspectives (ya think?). It must be hard for him, because he has been called into a field that requires much planning and commitment (fourteen years of school). I know he just wants me to be happy and reach my full potential. And he worries about what I would do if something happens to him. I reassured him that I am going to grad school, and reminded him that there aren't any babies in our plans for at least five years. I think this comforted him somewhat, but I know it still drives him crazy that I don't have a plan. And I know this post will grind his nerves. At least he will have clean socks until I make a decision.
*Husband Chris Shubert is the way Chris is listed in my crackberry. I entered his name, and under title I entered "husband" so the crackberry dubbed him Husband Chris Shubert. So that is what I usually call him. Because it sounds so official.
2 comments:
I love it... I really love it. Christopher is so special.
You know, I was sort of worried that the "things" (job/career plan type things) I wanted to do, even before I met Jonathan, involved doing something sort of related to my degree, but mostly were just sort of temporary things to do until I actually made up my mind. Like, I thought it would be fun to work at the State Department and stamp passports somewhere boring for three years, and THEN decide what to do with my life.
Now that I have two (technically; I already count Aiden as a child, which is something that some people understand and some people scoff at) children and a husband, I'm able to admit that really what I want out of life is to be a homemaker. I am more fulfilled by and feel more useful to society when I am spraying down the bathroom counter and cleaning out the toothbrush holder than I ever was by discussing why democratic systems work better in places where they're sought by the people instead of being implemented by outsiders.
I would like to have a photog.business because taking and manipulating digital photographs is something that I really ENJOY. It's pretty much a hobby that I can do as a job and it NOT interfere with what I see as my primary calling in life - to be a wife and mother.
So, all of that was to say that I feel you on the job versus career front. But maybe that's just because we both are defying adulthood... hehe
Let's play Scrabble...
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