What do you do for a living? Is it something that you are passionate about? Is it something that engages you mentally, emotionally, physically, or spiritually? Are you satisfied with your work? Do you have a job or a career? I have asked these questions to myself often through the years. I will admit that I have had many ups and downs when it comes to work.
Some of my jobs were horrible. Jobs where you get paid a very low wage by an unappreciative employer just to spend 12 hours a day slaving away doing repetitive to increase the company's profit margin. Some of the jobs I've had were great. Diving in a crystal clear and calm lake up in S. Carolina. I enjoyed my days on that project...didn't matter about the money because I was doing something that I would have paid to have been doing.
I enjoy the work that I'm doing now. Working as a consultant in the sub sea oil and gas industry. I get to travel a lot and I get to see and experience new and interesting things. I get to be out on the water some. I do a job that is important to our society and it is challenging. I am well compensated for the time I spend away from my family performing this work and I work with good, intelligent people.
I do enjoy my work. I hate that I have to be away from home so much though. It's a shame that you have to be gone so much just to earn a good living but that's the way it is. You take the good with the bad. A man has to do something for a living. You have to make money doing something to support your family and have nice things. Unfortunately, there's not much of a selection of jobs around where I live. As a result, I have missed birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries. I have missed family vacations, cookouts, and crawfish boils. I missed the birth of my daughter and my Papaw's funeral. As we say in this business though, "It is what it is.".
I sacrifice because I love my family and I want to support them. I want them to live a good life full of things that they not only need but things they want. Things we want. This work though is not just a job. It's my career. A job is just work that I could easily walk away from. Nothing lost but a day's wage. My career is something that I've put blood, sweat, and even tears in to. I've worked hard to earn my good reputation in this business. I've stressed out over deadlines, tests, drawings, design issues, money, schedules, logistics, quality control, fabrication, and production. I've enjoyed it all.
I enjoy it because it engages my mind and challenges me to be the best at what I do. I don't have a boss that stands over me requiring me to perform. It's all up to me. I love that. I wake up each morning and say to myself, "It pays to be a winner. The only easy day was yesterday". That motivates me to to go out and tackle each day and confront the day's issues with the respect and tenacity that each day deserves.
This job allows me to follow a structured system yet allow me to be able to think for myself outside the box. It's a job that not a lot of people do...it's exclusive and I like that. I don't get to do all the things that I have an interest in though. I guess that's what hobbies are for. That's another blog topic though.
In conclusion, is you work just a job that you work just in order to pay the bills. OR, are you one of the fortunate ones who get to make a career doing something that you enjoy? Whatever you do for a living remember that as long as you do it well and to the best of your ability...it's honorable.
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