"Life is My Career"
My friend, Brian Kao, a remarkably talented photographer and intelligent individual, entered
Life is my career
into his Facebook status box the other day. And it got me thinking.
Before I get to what the line got me thinking about, do harass Brian until he re-displays his landscape shots on his beautiful, clean website again, please. He captures New York City and so many areas of our world in such a magnificent way, and if we all harass him enough, maybe he'll give in and put the snapshots back where they belong.
Thanks.
Moving on, yeah. I got to thinking about his concise, clear statement. About Life, career, life as a career, and ADD.
Huh? ADD? As in Attention Deficit Disorder, Deb?
Yeah, ADD. As in Attention Deficit Disorder. I received an e-mail earlier about some lecture-y sessions being held in September pertaining to career, life, ADD, etc. And one of the questions blaring specifically from the ADD lecture advertisement was:
Are you tired of feeling pulled in too many directions and never having enough time for yourself?
It got me wondering because, fuck, I've been pulled in too many directions most of my life. And I've been weary until the point of physical and emotional and mental fragility. I lived in a tight one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx with four other family members and too many yappy Chihuahuas. For years, what my younger brother and I knew was that my mother was dying. Our father was pretty much absent after the first few years of our life, submerged in work at his work space, submerged in work or prime-time TV, or indulging in quality time spent obsessively screaming at us every second he was around and making our lives miserable. My younger brother was hooked on Heroin and violent...
I could go on here except my point is OF course my life was pulled in too many directions. A Disney princess I am not.
What being pulled in many directions have to do with ADD is something I cannot figure out. I mean, I imagine that anyone who's had a far, far from comfy life has been pulled in many directions. I imagine that anyone who's cared for an ailing parent or pillared a severely dysfunctional household or suffered at the hands of domestic violence and so on hasn't had much time for him/herself.
I imagine that anyone who's struggled to make a living, to survive, has also been pulled in many directions, left without much time for him/herself.
And just what the hell does "time for oneself" entail, exactly? Chunks of dark chocolate gnawed over Desperate Housewives? (Exciting.) Soaking our feet, which accomplishes nothing but the soaking of our feet? (Fascinating.) Or actually doing something like cooking, which provides us with nourishment?
Back to the mystery of the linkage between natural pullings and ADD. Are some of us sufferers of ADD because we've struggled and bled and cried, and perhaps even continue to struggle and bleed and cry? Are some of us, when compared to those who've had a cozy upbringing, considered inferior? Are folks like me, who've spent what seemed like eons suffocated by tears post loud, violent eruptions in the household I grew up in, who've witnessed a family falling apart due to drugs and illness and so forth,... diseased?
Those of us who have been (or who are) pulled (and pushed) in too many directions... Do we really suffer from ADD? Do we essentially make up pathetic little test groups?
Or... are we just doing the best we can while keeping up with life (and some of you have a problem with it)?
I'll go with doing the best we can while keeping up with life. It is all too simple to deem someone diseased, following up with a treatment or cure or trendy "band-aid" of the month. All too simple.
And so, like Brian, I believe that life is our career. Not Medicine. Not Real Estate. Not Journalism. Life.
We are meant to be pushed and pulled in many directions because it is life, the cards we have been dealt plus our will, that is in charge, not ADD (or something like it). And like the seasons and weather and climate, life changes, with or without notice. We can go from working as an executive in a shiny corporation, easily earning $75,000 per year, to serving ice-cream at a sweet shop for $19,000 per year. It happens, and it doesn't make us any less human. It just shows us that we need to adapt to changing environments because our environment changes with our without our consent.
Besides, ice-cream makes all kinds of people happy, so one can make lots of connections. AND it just might be that in the sweet shop, in that sweet company, one becomes promoted much more quickly than in his/her shiny corporation. This happened to someone I know, who went from being laid off from a comfy high-paying job to working a "crappy" retail job. Within six months, she was promoted to supervisor, trainer and then some kind of well-paid manager.
Turns out the newer company appreciated her talents and gifts more, and felt the need to showcase them by promoting her at least three times in six months.
Feel free to refer to our rather shitty economic state for further proof of our changing-- er, changed-- times. I am pretty sure it's trying to teach us a very valuable lesson. A lesson that involves not perching our behinds onto one seat; becoming too comfortable, even blinded by luxuries and superficiality, or following one career path as that has only lead to major disappointment and loss of late.
Instead we may wish to try going with the motions, trying new kinds of jobs/careers and utilizing all of our skills versus just one, adapting to whatever economic climate blesses or befalls us as we choose to continue to survive and thrive.
Life is our career. No boo-hoo about it.
I could go on here except my point is OF course my life was pulled in too many directions. A Disney princess I am not.
What being pulled in many directions have to do with ADD is something I cannot figure out. I mean, I imagine that anyone who's had a far, far from comfy life has been pulled in many directions. I imagine that anyone who's cared for an ailing parent or pillared a severely dysfunctional household or suffered at the hands of domestic violence and so on hasn't had much time for him/herself.
I imagine that anyone who's struggled to make a living, to survive, has also been pulled in many directions, left without much time for him/herself.
And just what the hell does "time for oneself" entail, exactly? Chunks of dark chocolate gnawed over Desperate Housewives? (Exciting.) Soaking our feet, which accomplishes nothing but the soaking of our feet? (Fascinating.) Or actually doing something like cooking, which provides us with nourishment?
Back to the mystery of the linkage between natural pullings and ADD. Are some of us sufferers of ADD because we've struggled and bled and cried, and perhaps even continue to struggle and bleed and cry? Are some of us, when compared to those who've had a cozy upbringing, considered inferior? Are folks like me, who've spent what seemed like eons suffocated by tears post loud, violent eruptions in the household I grew up in, who've witnessed a family falling apart due to drugs and illness and so forth,... diseased?
Those of us who have been (or who are) pulled (and pushed) in too many directions... Do we really suffer from ADD? Do we essentially make up pathetic little test groups?
Or... are we just doing the best we can while keeping up with life (and some of you have a problem with it)?
I'll go with doing the best we can while keeping up with life. It is all too simple to deem someone diseased, following up with a treatment or cure or trendy "band-aid" of the month. All too simple.
And so, like Brian, I believe that life is our career. Not Medicine. Not Real Estate. Not Journalism. Life.
We are meant to be pushed and pulled in many directions because it is life, the cards we have been dealt plus our will, that is in charge, not ADD (or something like it). And like the seasons and weather and climate, life changes, with or without notice. We can go from working as an executive in a shiny corporation, easily earning $75,000 per year, to serving ice-cream at a sweet shop for $19,000 per year. It happens, and it doesn't make us any less human. It just shows us that we need to adapt to changing environments because our environment changes with our without our consent.
Besides, ice-cream makes all kinds of people happy, so one can make lots of connections. AND it just might be that in the sweet shop, in that sweet company, one becomes promoted much more quickly than in his/her shiny corporation. This happened to someone I know, who went from being laid off from a comfy high-paying job to working a "crappy" retail job. Within six months, she was promoted to supervisor, trainer and then some kind of well-paid manager.
Turns out the newer company appreciated her talents and gifts more, and felt the need to showcase them by promoting her at least three times in six months.
Feel free to refer to our rather shitty economic state for further proof of our changing-- er, changed-- times. I am pretty sure it's trying to teach us a very valuable lesson. A lesson that involves not perching our behinds onto one seat; becoming too comfortable, even blinded by luxuries and superficiality, or following one career path as that has only lead to major disappointment and loss of late.
Instead we may wish to try going with the motions, trying new kinds of jobs/careers and utilizing all of our skills versus just one, adapting to whatever economic climate blesses or befalls us as we choose to continue to survive and thrive.
Life is our career. No boo-hoo about it.
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