Wednesday, July 23, 2014

What if you changed your perspective?

In what I like to call my "big girl life", I work for a large food company. I spend a lot of time sitting in meetings learning about macro trends in the world. The economics of the average family and how much (or little) they have to spend on groceries.

Our office building is smack dab in the middle of a major city. Walking down the street, I am often stung by the irony of corporate executives stepping out of the way for the legless, homeless man to navigate the city sidewalks in his duct taped wheelchair.

The homeless lady who yells obscenities at the wind.

The trumpet guy with his dirty instrument case, entertaining the more financially fortunate on their lunch breaks for an hourly wage of $3.18-all in change.

How does this happen?

All I know is that when I think about changing my life, I know this. I like a warm bed in my cozy house, a shower whenever I want, medical insurance, a foofoo cup of coffee every now and then and not worrying if I spend more than $1.38 per person per day to feed my family. I know, my chaos is someone else's heaven. #getoveryourself

Every "big girl" career decision I've ever made has been mostly about the salary. In my twisted thought process; the larger the salary, the less I have to worry. (Which for the record, I'm fantastic at.)

I often justify this head job by thinking; your kids can go to college, they can get new shoes when they need them, you don't have to wait until the next paycheck, they can join obnoxiously expensive show choir, they can go to camp.

By doing this job and trading my life hours for a paycheck, we turn can'ts into cans. I can give them opportunity, knowledge, experience and choices. 

That's a lot of power and responsibility given to a j-o-b.

So you can understand how the thought of wanting to quit isn't just about the job.

If I quit, they suffer. I worry. We become the statistics. I become the wind yeller.

Only, what if we don't?