Woody's Hierarchy of Work
Recent events have made me spend some, time eyes cast ceilingward, pondering the nature of work.
A hobby is work that you do because you enjoy it. You will get little or no compensation for this work, but the act of doing it makes your life feel more complete. My father gardens as a hobby. Most things in excess he simply gives away, but his collards he sells. The money he gets for his collards barely covers the fertilizer that grew them and goes nowhere towards the hours of labor he puts in to create his harvest. He is happy, and in this example his hobby puts food on the table, but it won't pay the bills.
A job is what you do in an attempt to keep a roof over your head. Most people have jobs. They probably don't enjoy their work, they may even hate it, but they have to do it or they will be on the streets. They probably aspire to do greater things that they feel they would enjoy but for whatever reason, lack of training, lack of certification, too old, too young, too scared, to beaten down by the man, they won't or can't follow their dream. I imagine you can think of entire industries that are filled with people doing a job.
A career is the highest form of work. This is the work you love doing that more than puts a roof over your head.
You may not be able to go out on a whim and buy an new Corvette, however you could save up for one if the Corvette was that important to you. If asked, you would probably say that you live a rich, full, and satisifying life. You have everything you need and you don't have to worry about basic human needs.
After comming up with those definitions I realized that I have two hobbies. Fencing doesn't bring in a dime, infact, it cost me money. I enjoy it, it does good things for me physically and emotionally, and it allows me give to the community. It is a warm and fuzzy rolled into a healthy lifestyle regime. Meanwhile I have my state job doing Knowledge Management. I love this work. I enjoy making connections in information figuring out how things really work and using the knowledge to help protect those who make three times (or more) my salary from themselves. Its like being a superhero, I am using my special skills to save the day. It is very rewarding. However rewarding or not, even with our combined salary, my wife and I are always exactly one paycheck from homelessness. If the car suffered a major system failure today that I couldn't fix myself, we would be down to Sara's truck, if Sara's truck suffered a majore system failure tomorrow that I couldn't fix myself, we wouldn't be able to get to work or anywhere else unless I manage to get one vehicle or the other limping again or we can find a garage who would let us pay in installments.
If I hated my work, it would be a job, if I got paid proper wages for my work it would be a career, as I love my work, but don't get paid properly for it, it is a hobby. This said, clearly something is going to have to happen somewhere if I want to rise above the one paycheck from homeless status. As I see it, I need to give up one hobby or the other for either a career, or at the very least a job that pays enough more than my hobbies to allow for a safety net.
The funny thing is, and this is clearly a failure of my own character, I don't want to give up either hobby, I want to shoehorn in a third hobby that I could dream might possibly add a little money to our lives. I am torn between being a good responsible provider, and having a full life. Its a good thing I am a Master of Bitterness.
Bitterness is the full and complete understanding that life really isn't fair and the mechanisms necessary to go on living it in spite of that fact. - Woody Cavenaugh
