i'm "just" me

i hate running into former classmates from college or highschool, or seeing family members that i haven't seen in ages. every time i do, i have to face my deeply hued and never-ending insecurities. if it weren't for the fact that my family and other acquaintances that i run into from time to time seem to equate self-worth with profession, then i'd be ok.

ok, so yeah i graduated from one of the top universities in the country. and yeah i have a degree. and yeah sometimes i think i know a thing or two. but i have a whole host of insecurities - i guess because i'm not really where i'd like to be at this stage in my life. got a dead-end job that sucks more than most people know, want to be somewhere else, doing so much more, traveling the world, married with a kid or four, and i haven't yet accomplished any of that. and every time i run into people from school or i (unfortunately) have to go to some family reunion or gathering, i get bombarded with all the questions that i don't want to answer about my life. and the first is always, "so what do you do, where do you work?" or they confuse me with my sister and ask "so you're the teacher right?" my only reply to that question is a subdued, "no, i'm the other one..."

why is it that we tend to identify ourselves with our careers? why is it that one of the first things people ask you about yourself is where you work, what you do for a living? it's as if we equate importance, worth, and overall greatness with professional status. and what's worse is that i've allowed those standards of others to make me feel even more insecure about the fact that i'm not some CEO or president, that i haven't started my own business, that i'm not in some high-end, prestigious profession making trillions of dollars.

i'm "just" an assistant at a consulting company. that "just" is mostly self-inflicted, but i FEEL as if when people ask about me or tell about me, i've become a mere "just" in their eyes. everyone i know is a director of something, a leader of something, a president of something, a manager of something. makes me feel so....small.

and that feeling of smallness is not because i feel like being an assistant is a lowly job - it's not. but i guess i feel that others judge me or something because my title isn't big like theirs. most of that feeling is probably due to my own insecurity, and maybe most people couldn't give two hoots about it. but a part of me really feels like they do...

just to clarify, making trillions of dollars and being a CEO are NOT on my life's "To Do" list. those things don't add up to much to me. i'd rather make a minuscule amount of money doing what i love, than to make a ton of money just doing a "job". but what if "doing what i love" was being a waitress, or working at Wal-mart, or some other service-oriented job that people tend to scoff at? i have a feeling that that would not be good enough for people i know. i'd inevitably be stained with that "she's just a waitress..." kinda label.

so my question is, isn't there more to life than what you do for a living? isn't there more that makes you YOU, other than just what your career is? if so, why is it that we tend to identify ourselves with what we do?

when someone asks you to tell about yourself, usually you start with what career you have. or when someone first meets you, usually the first thing they ask is, "so...what do you do?"

the next time i'm asked that question, i'm just going to say, " i do LOTS of things....i go to church, i love God, i sing, i swim, i sew, i write, i live, i love, i'm just ME."

i know that part of my problem with this whole issue is that i'm not secure enough in who i am yet. and i'm working on that. i of course want to be all that i can be, all that God designed and ordained me to be from the beginning of the world. but if whatever that is doesn't measure up to the world's and my family's and associates' standards, then i need to be totally ok with that. what God created me to be may not seem great in the eyes of everyone else, but it sure will be great in His eyes. and that's all that should matter to me.

as India.Arie says "I am not my hair," Lava's gonna write a song that says "I am not my job!"

:-)