Work

This morning, I had breakfast with one of my oldest friends.  While we have been friends for more than twenty years, this morning was the first we had seen of each other in nine years.  This is one of the times that I say “thank you, technology.”  If not for Facebook, I would never have known that my childhood playmate was only minutes away.  As soon as I found out, I begged her to go to breakfast with me.  She conceded.  And there we were, sitting in the damp west Sonoma morning on the patio of a little bohemian coffee house.  We had coffee, a Boston Terrier, and nearly a decade of catching up to do in a matter of hours. 

We have both been a lot of places and done a lot of things since the last time we saw each other.  But, now, Jenny is doing something completely different than what she had been doing her entire adult life.  For that matter, she is doing something different than anyone our age has done in their entire adult lives.  Jenny quit a job that she was good at, after she was offered a promotion and a raise.  Not just a raise.  She was offered twenty thousand dollars more than she was making.  She was respected and accomplished in her profession.  Still, she uprooted herself from a job that had owned her for seven years, and walked away.  To go on a seven month road trip.

I had to know.  I had to understand what this journey was about.  I asked her “So, what are you doing now?”  She looked at me and grinned “This.  This is what I am doing now.”  I still didn’t’ understand.  So I probed further.  “Where are you living?”  Again, she grinned and shrugged.  At this point, my mind was fucking blown.  I had no response.  She said “Like I told you, I’ll be in Big Sur tonight.  Then Huntington Beach by Wednesday.” 

Sure.  Big Sur.  Huntington Beach. Makes perfect sense.  But it doesn’t.  I screamed “WHY THE FUCK WERE YOU IN THE PETALUMA KOA???”  Then she told the story.  The story about being a company woman.  About how when you are in your mid-thirties and don’t have a family, you find yourself only living for work.  She talked about how she had done it all right all of the time.  College.  Jobs.  Careers.  Paying bills.  Paying off her student loans.  One day, she woke up and realized the only thing she was paying for was food and that cute little 320i that has gotten 7,000 miles out of during the last three month.  She finally said “The only thing I had was my work.  Work that I was proud of, but didn’t want to define me.” 

That was the second time in less than 28 hours that I had heard the same sentiment escape from the mouths of people I love and consider successful professionals.  Yesterday morning one of my beloveds told me “If today is the end, all I have is a career that I only half care about.”  The first time I heard it, I tried to be encouraging and give reassurance that being committed to your career is purposeful. But the second time I heard it, I had to wonder if, maybe, successful young people with promising careers are right to be unfulfilled.  What are we actually working for? 

Are we working for savings accounts and retirement plans?  Are we working for life insurance policies without beneficiaries?  Are we working to buy good health insurance that will pay for good medications?  What the fuck are we working for?  For promotions and accolades?  For our bosses to affirm us?  We all want to think that our jobs have meaning.  We want to think that we dedicate our lives to making a difference.  But in the process of making a difference to our employers, we often find that we are distancing ourselves from what is really important. 

So, now is the time that we need to ask ourselves what is actually important.  Is it health insurance and survivors’ benefits and 401k’s?  Is it your boss’s promotion?  Is it mission statements?  Probably not.  More likely, it’s the time you exhausted your savings traveling the globe.  Or maybe it was the time that you wrote with all your heart, without fear of retribution.  Or the mornings you were late to work because you were too busy cuddling with your babies before they grow up to live the same meaningless, corporate life you are leading. 

What are we working for?  What is our purpose?  When will we stop forfeiting laughter for money?  When will we love each other before we love status?  When will we appreciate orgasms more than attaboys?  When will our children be our actually be our first priority, without fear of unemployment? 

-Inner Peas