In this country, these types of questions are typical. When you fill out paperwork. When you meet someone new. In this country, what we do has become synonymous with who we are. And it needs to stop.
Who we are should not be defined by what we do. Yet, people are impressed when you’re a doctor, lawyer, professor, etc., and less impressed when you’re a plumber, garbage man, or stay at home mom. Why? Why are there professions we look at as being insignificant? The education factor? Maybe, but some people do not have the money to get the education they need. They may be smart enough to be rocket scientists, but didn’t have the opportunity to go to college. Whereas we may have CEO’s of companies whose parents basically bought them a degree and handed them a company without having to work for anything, but are complete idiots.
Husband is in the construction field. He is not a laborer, operator, forman, or superintendent. He does the tech work and he oversees the tech in operations. Yet, he knows that the ground workers are the backbone of the industry, not him or the other people sitting in the offices on 100 degree days. The CEO of a company is only as good as his/her lowest employee. Do you know why he knows this? He was a laborer/operator for years. He started out doing the grunt work. He has a college degree, but still went into construction. He was looked down upon by certain people for years. As he changed his career path and he started to work more with technology, those same people started to look at him differently. He was still the same person, but the job title was different. Now, people look at what he does and they think a lot more highly of him. Because he works in an office now? Because he only comes home greasy and dirty once a week instead of 5 days? People’s views of him changed based on how important they deemed his job.
I have a friend who just retired from teaching...20 years early. When I mention this, the most common response is, “What’s she going to do now?”. Seriously? She’s going to do whatever the fuck makes her happy, Judgy McJudgerpants. I couldn’t be more proud of her. She saw her job making her miserable. She saw the changes and decided she could not be part of those without losing herself and compromising her beliefs, so she walked away. That takes a hell of a lot of chutzpah. THAT is what defines a person, not what their job is. What’s she going to do now? The same thing she was doing before, but better because she’ll be less miserable.
How you live your life defines who you are. How you treat others defines who you are. What you do to earn a living is less important. Society needs to wake up and see that job status, wealth, belongings, or how we look don’t define us. The true measure of who we are is our interaction with the world and those around us. We all have roles to play and no one is more or less important just because of their job title. I am kind. I care. I help. I love. That’s what I do. And those certainly should be everyone’s jobs.
Occupation: Good human