I Am Not What I Do

Picture this, you're at a party, and there are people there you do not know. So you start talking to one of the guests at this party and the first thing they ask you is "What do you do?" Most of the time I would love to answer in a preposterous response such as "I fly kites for a living."
  I find this question to be one of the rudest and presumptuous questions out there in regards to getting to know someone. It is as if what you do matters and how you measure up or don't measure up in society. I have also found it to be a determinant in whether or not the person would like to be friends. And to be frank, I don't want to "Keep up with the Jones'".
  Some of you may say, well you are insecure about yourself, because why do you care about what others think? And honestly, I don't care about what others think, but I am a little insecure. It hurts when people try to get to know you and they're entertaining the idea of a friendship based upon what you do for a living or what your financial status is. Why is this so important for people to know what I do to pay my bills? My interests in life have nothing to do with what I do for a living. It is pretty low, in my opinion, if you only want to get to know someone based on their socioeconomic status.
  I work for a credit union handling debit card disputes and fraud. It does not pay much money and it certainly not what I had for envisioned for myself for the duration of my life. I went to school for Communications, graduated with my Bachelor's degree in Public Relations, with honors no less. I can remember when I once told my aunt and uncle what my degree was in, they said to me "Why the heck did you get your degree in that? Your not going to find a job in that field and it doesn't make a lot of money."  I am wondering if these comments and others like it are a product of the Baby Boomer generation where wealth was the central focus of life. There were so many careers I wanted to pursue, only to be told "It doesn't make any money", or "Your not smart enough to do that."
  After college, I found myself floating around and very indecisive about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Like many creative people, I had a hard time zeroing in on what area of creativity I wanted to focus in. I am an artist, a thinker and a dreamer, and that is what I do. I am great at cooking, writing, drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, jewelry making, scrapbooking, etc. It is very hard for me in these areas to focus one one because I am good at so many things in relation to the artistic field.
  The truth is, I do not want to climb a corporate ladder, and be a workaholic. I have no desire to work up to that level; kudos to those that have achieved that goal. I have to go to work because it pays the bills. I have a job that has minimal stress so I can go home to my family and be emotionally present for them. I also feel in my heart there is a cultural shift that is taking place where people are realizing that moving the woman back into the family life is far more important than any paycheck she might bring home.
 Homemaking should be a respectable career. Wanting to stay home with your family should NEVER carry with it a negative stereotype.  Our society sends the message one should have a full time job and be superwoman and raise a family at the same time. My friends who do stay home with their children have also expressed to me when they're asked "what they do?" by an inquiring individual they first meet. They feel forced to answer a distasteful question. It is as if these individuals resent people who stay home because in their mind, people who stay home are not amounting to anything.
  Indecision has been a demon in my life. I have felt inferior because I just couldn't quite "figure it out". I had lost confidence in myself because these continuous tapes of negativity play like a broken record in my mind. So I am not doing "what I want to do" or what you "think I should be doing".  I am faced with this internal question all the time. "What is it that I want to do?" And I keep coming back to the same answer of "I don't know." I don't believe I should even do the same thing for the rest of my life.
   We have to redo the tapes in our mind to say that we are so fortunate to be creative and full of many talents. We need to start telling ourselves "So what if I am not a....fill in the blank." We also need to stop justifying to others on why we have chosen these paths in life. What career we choose does not make us any less of a person. It is not your spirit or soul.  I am not a debit card processor. I am Kathleen Silvia and I chose not to let my choice of career define who I am.