I’ve never really had a traditional career. To me, having a “career” meant voluntarily trapping yourself in an office for 8 hours a day in a job that was arduous and kept you from doing the things you’d much rather be doing. It also meant choosing one path to the exclusion of most others.

Other than some years when my kids were very little, however, I’ve always worked. I worked full-time before they were born, part-time later. Sometimes the work was interesting, but it still was (and is) merely means to an end. That end being to make money to pay the bills.

It’s not that I don’t want to do work in general. I’ll happily do all kinds of things that are considered work, that benefit me and others. That add something to the world, or merely my house or community.

But having conventional trading-time-for-money work makes me feel trapped, makes me feel like I have little say in what kind of work I get to spend my time on. It also makes me feel like I’m selling portions of my life just to survive.

So, before I had kids, I just had jobs. And now, I try to balance (freelance) jobs with my ultimate goal, which is to have control over how I spend my day. I’ve had varying levels of success.

This capitalism thing is a bit of a racket.

And this post is a bit rambly.

My own takeaway from having written it is this: Perhaps I never had the right kind of guide, mentor, career counselor. I sought clarity as a young person, but no interest inventory or other help was ever actually, you know, helpful.

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