Jobs vs. Careers, is there a difference?

The notion of a job seems so limiting to me but I must take full responsibility for my lack of career planning. As a result of my short-sightedness, I find myself jumping from job to job looking for something, what that something is I'm not quite sure but what that something isn't, this I'm certain of and is the primary reason why I will leave a job in search of the unknown. An unknown something that I can never seem to isolate specifically in my mind and can never discover in a job, so maybe I'm fooling myself or maybe, I am what I have always thought I was, a fool! The truth is I don't mind being a fool, it's a good excuse and it allows me to not take myself so seriously. But there is an angst in the pit of my stomach, a constant gnawing at my spirit with regards to working at what I would consider jobs versus employment that would be in synch with a so-called career.
I'm a habitual job hopper but for the most part it was out of need, a need to feed three children and hopefully sustain some semblance of a life for them. Job hopping came as a result of always working positions that never captured my imagination or engaged my intellect or kindled my passion. So now I'm at this crossroad, not really but we'll call it a crossroad because it sounds much better than anything else that I can come up with. This juncture has me contemplating a new way my forward movement, my renewed or sincere interest in unleashing my career plan but it feels daunting at 42 years of age. The world was my oyster when I was in my twenties and career planning felt like a noose around my neck. My thirties were good for exploration but with kids getting older and my mind aging, I allowed myself to stand on the outside of the process of visioning my life and I let the wind blow me hither, wherever and which ever direction seemed like the path of least resistance. I try hard not to feel the weight of regret because it will not serve any purpose but to make me feel negative things which will confine me to a life lived in a straight-jacket and although it may be fashionable to wear these controlling garment, I still have this inclining of hope, this fraction of an ounce of hope and a smidget of desire to dream big and go where my true heart wants to go.
I think of my mother who worked in the post office, I think about so many people in my family and extended family who worked in plants or who worked in service positions at the University of Michigan hospital. I think back and I recall the joy they felt in obtaining the financial resources garnered from their jobs but I remember more the shear frustration they felt at working at jobs that under appreciated them and work that felt kin to being a slave. I always said I would never work in a factory and I would never work at the post office. The post office specifically was a place that tortured my poor mother and to add insult to injury is was an unsafe environment and I found no comfort in hearing about stories of people going into the post office killing fellow colleagues. There used to be this saying, going postal which was in reference to random killing. I hated that saying because it evoked a image too horrific for me to consider. I was not interested or willing to deal with learning that my poor mother was killed at work because some fool felt mistreated. My mother treated everyone with respect and kindness, people always communicated this to me and a childhood friend once said, it's the good one's that end up suffering. My mother was a good one and I did not want her suffer at the hands of some maniac. Luckily, she retired about eight years ago and I felt an instant sense of relief .
I look at my mother and see the wear and tear of her job on her face, in her hands and most ostensibly in her spirit. She has labored long and hard, I've not labored in this way. I have endured jobs where I have sat on my butt all day, which might be why my butt is big but that's another topic for my blog and for another day. What I do know is this, I'm tired of jobs, I'm tired of sitting on my butt all day (as strange as that may sound). I want movement, I want to intellectually engaged, I want to learn, I want to grow, I want to consider a pathway toward a career, I want to be around people who care about life and for the first time in my life, I recognize whose responsibility it is for my direction. I keep looking to jobs, careers, people, places and things to make my life have meaning. I've discovered that only I can make meaning in my life. Only, I can embrace with a sense of resolve a job or a career. Only I can make the work I do matter beyond the daily mundane. Only I can give value to the work that I do. Only I can decide to love what I give to each employer. Only I can plan my career. Only I can complete the task required to actualize that career plan. Only I can take an employment opportunity and turn it into a miracle. Only I can bring the joy to my place of work. Only I can be the light of love. Only I make the difference and it's not words like job or career.
I keep letting work define who I am. Maybe, just maybe if I defined my work which could translate into using certain employment to catapult my personal career goals, then the control would revert back to where it should of been all along which is with me. To discover the real meaning of means to an end. To stop billowing in self doubt or shame of my past or fear of the future. Perhaps today I awaken my consciousness and use it in service to creating the life that I want as oppose to the life I thought I was destined to or a life I felt would fall upon me because I was black, a woman and whatever other stuff I had in my head. Today, I actualize my living in the way the divine spirit has always provided. I use this mind, heart and soul to express the parts of me that I love best. What many people don't know is that I love, I mean I adore science and mathematics. Not only that, it comes way too easy for me but what most gives me complete and utter joy is when I am able to translate scientific or mathematical concepts to people who thought they would never understand it, that feels almost like an orgasm ( I repeat ALMOST but not quite and not enough for me to forgo the actual act of getting to an orgasm). Secretly, I've always wanted to be a science teacher and was willing to teach math course as well. I secretly still want to do that. My ultimate dream, since I'm in a confessional mood today, is that I really would love to instruct medical students in Gross Anatomy. University of Michigan has lecture notes and little videos for this course online, I peruse this site regularly, okay almost daily but it comes in phases. I have this vision of teaching people about the complexity of the human body and not just for the sake of memorizing anatomical structure but for them to discover the majestic nature of the human body. How intricate, delicate yet persistent the body really is and to unleash a profound respect for what our bodies do for us on a day to day basis. We take for granted this vessel, structure that we are contained and I say we need to know it better, take care of it but not in a superficial, cosmetic surgery, fad diet, kind of way. To compound this utter high respect for the human body is the understanding that comes in a course like biochemistry. I found real joy is biochemistry, I confirmed the existence of a higher power in physics but I was able to transcend the brilliance of the creator in biochemistry.
Can a person teach both gross anatomy and biochemistry to first year medical students? Because if they can, I would do it and I would elevate medical school education by bringing a instructional phenomena that will ground these future doctors in a deep-seated admiration and respect for the living organism. We need more doctors to work from that place of understanding because when they do, they develop into partners, partnering with their patience to bring back respect and love to our bodies. This notion will heal people naturally, it will serve as the mechanism by which we stop being dependent on health care (sick care) and engage in self empowerment over our bodies, bodies that desperately need some tender loving care.
I say all this to say this, it's all in how you look at things whether or not something is a job or a career. It is ultimately up to me to utilize a job or a career to create something good for my life, that's a choice that only I can make, a definition I can construct for myself. The difference is not the words, although the words are different, the difference is what I do and my attitude.. The difference is me and today I commit to making a difference in my life and the world we all live in.
I am perfect and I am whole and I am complete. I LOVE ME!