Is it what you do that’s important? Or is it what you are?

What I wanted to be versus what I do versus what I am.  These are three separate, distinctive, and different things, lists really, about my life.  All three of them have almost nothing to do with the others.  I’ll get to those three lists in a minute.

Let’s take a doctor.  I am going to assume that if anyone can combine all three of of those lists, it would be a doctor.  I wanted to be a doctor, I am a doctor, I do doctor. Let’s face it, when you spend a minimum of 12 years in college  and interning (let alone 18 years of grammar, middle, and high school) that your life, your want to be, your am, your do lists all say “DOCTOR”.  right?  I must add “perhaps” after that “right”.  There must be doctors who don’t live, eat, and sleep doctoring…for a variety of reasons.  For one, they may have an extremely rich personal and family life that requires a certain amount of time.  Doctors, at least what I’ve been led to believe about young doctors anyway, interns, they don’t have a lot of free time.  Perhaps I sat through too many partial episodes of Grey’s Anatomy. They work long shifts while going to medical school, have overly important drama queen (and king) personalities, and must find time to screw one another in clandestine storerooms or empty patient beds.  All of this cavorting done between life and death surgeries and long periods of whining and self pity.  Again, perhaps Loretta “forced” me to watch too many episodes of Grey’s Anatomy. Perhaps when all of that schooling and interning, screwing, and residenting is done and they join a medical group or start their own small town practice, then and only then, perhaps they have time for a full and enriched personal life away from doctoring.  Right?  I don’t rightly know, for a I am not a doctor and haven’t known a doctor on a personal basis, either while growing up or as an adult.  Certainly none of the doctors I’ve ever  met, ie, been treated by, in no way fit any of the “doctors” on TV medical shows!  I assume there must something to all of that cavorting and brooding based on reality.  Perhaps, not!

Maybe the same can be said for, let’s say, an architect, which, by the way, is one of the things on my wanted to be list.  After a semester or so of drafting classes in college, and being told that I had a real talent for graphic art (back when the “art” of architecture was still done by hand on a drawing board and not through a CAD program), I found out that it takes 12 years to become a full-fledged architect…12 years!  Involving at least 6 years of school, it also included another 6 years or so “interning”, or as they call it, “junior draftsman” status.  Some of that later can be done concurrently with class schooling, so that 12 years about which I speak can be whittled down a bit.  At any rate, I bailed on that career when I found out that radio broadcasting could be easier, more fun, and I could meet women more readily.

Here is my wanted to be list, in chronological order:  lawyer (my Mom’s wish for me at a very young age, I didn’t really even know what a lawyer was so that didn’t last), zoologist, marine biologist (these last two I was very serious about through my early teens, I loved fish, frogs, snakes, and dissecting things in school…didn’t follow through with it, lost interest, discovered girls?), cinematographer (probably my most passionate and long-lasting career desire, never followed through on the schooling, went in the Navy, blah, blah, blah), radio announcer (spent about 18 years in that business, lost interest due to lack of equitable pay in a small town, opted out for restaurant management, something that shows up on my what I do (did) list.  That concludes my wanted to be list.  That’s it, that’s all I ever wanted to be until recently.  Add writer and photographer to this list.

Here is my what I do (did) list: employee at McDonald’s (from 15-17, was courted to go into management, had no interest), employee at Sears (I was 18, worked in the store, then outside in the tire department, got fired because someone’s tire fell off when they drove away, they couldn’t prove I did it so I drew unemployment for a couple months, no injuries in that errant tire fiasco), Creamery Technician (processed milk at the local community college while “attending” classes, I was 18-19 at the time), Navy Airborne Anti-submarine Warfare Technician/Operator (19-23, spent 4 years cavorting around the Pacific, Southeast Asia, Vietnam, etc, Honorable Discharge after being “courted” to stay in and become a full-fledged officer and a pilot, I opted out to go back home and grow my hair long…1973 priorities you know?), Radio Announcer (about 18 years in this business, see above on the wanted to be list for why I am not still a radio announcer), Restaurant Manager (got into it almost by accident after getting fired from my last radio job, spent another 18 years or so in this miserable profession, decent money though later on in my “career”), Photo Technician (at Walmart for the last 3 years, no money to speak of, have been courted for management but that will never happen again in this lifetime, pays the bills while biding my time to turn 62 and only work there part time).  This is what I do and what I have done.  It seems I have left some things out, but I’m sure someone will remind me.

And now, the what I am list.  This is what I always remind people who are not happy in their job or career, which has been in reality most of the folks I have met.  I remind them that this (your job) is what you do, it is not what your are (or who I am).  If what you do is also who you are, then you are indeed a lucky, if not self actualized person…and that is rare. (Refer back to the doctor or architect paragraph above).  I am a father, brother, son, friend, husband, writer, and photographer.  As I get closer to actually retiring, I will do more of what I am,  vis a vis, a writer and photographer.  At some point, I won’t work part time at Walmart, I will just write and photograph, if not for money but just for the pure enjoyment of doing what I am.  I am getting to the age where I feel I have earned that distinction, that ability to make the choice.  I have no more lofty career goals or fantasies to full fill in the work force.  I am at least truly done with that.  I am ready to let all that I have learned and experienced soak in for as long as I can.