What Do I Want To Do?

Since it’s very likely that I’ll be moving across the country in a few years to follow my job, it’s really made me think about what I want to do in life. And I’m not just talking about the big picture, I want to write a book and have a few kids kind of thing. I’m talking about my job type stuff. Where I’m working, what I’m doing, how it’s going kind of thing.

Basically, is this really the job I want to have forever? We always have this image of constant advancement. It’s as if I’m always supposed to be moving up in the world. I can’t be an Assistant Editor forever. Some day I have to be just the Editor. Then the Managing Editor. Then the Supreme Editor of all. Or something like that.

But I’m beginning to question that. Do I really want to be the managing editor? At this point in my life, the answer is no. I like my job. I like that I don’t have to be the final answer. I like that someone else has to deal with the really sticky questions. I like that I can go home at the end of the day and let things go. Maybe in a few years I’m yearn for more responsibility, but right now, I don’t want to advance.

That seems so anti-establishment. Can you really want to just stay where you’re at? Financially it doesn’t make a lot of sense, especially being an editor. I guess maybe I’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Maybe in several years I’ll have changed and want something more. But for now I’m not really worried about the financial matters and moving forward to advance my career.

I’m reminded of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

“Each of us lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live. These include the house we live in, the car we drive, the clothes we wear, the economic sources we acquire—the material stuff we must have to exist. There is always a danger that we will permit the means by which we live to replace the ends for which we live, the internal to become lost in the external.” (Strength to Love, page 70)

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