I am not my job.

I was waiting on my car to finish getting detailed during lunch today and was thinking about the friends I have and how I haven't made any "new" friends since like 2003 or something. Wait, I lied, I have 1 new real friend that is in my inner circle these days that I met in 2006/2007 I wonder if we get to a certain age and we just stop making friends. I have made new acquaintances, but not too many people that I call friend, friend. I come across lots of people in lots of different settings and it's not hard for me to have conversations with people. It's easy for me to discern who is interesting and who is faking the funk. People will go all out in some of the social settings to make themselves seem more than what they are. They'll immediately get to talking about 1) their career and/or 2) their educational background. Next time you meet someone new pay attention to the conversation, if they say something in the first oh, 30 seconds about their job and what they do, they most likely have nothing else going for them and like to define themselves and their worth by what they do. It's easy to introduce yourself and immediately say "I'm Angie and I run a consulting business" it just flows. Maybe because we spend so much time engulfed in our careers that we forget that we are not our jobs. I get caught up in that sometimes myself but I am way more than a business consultant, a grant writer, a director of blah blah blah.

My mom loves to introduce me to her friends and she dubiously ALWAYS seems to include my career, in her case I think she's just proud of me and is "showing" me off a lil bit. She knows I don't like to make a big deal about "me" in general so she takes it upon herself to do it for me in some settings. I've told her before about it, but that seems to be a never ending exercise in futility. She knows I have other beaming qualities but the "success" factor is her favorite light to shine. I'm sure if I were a fryer at Popeyes she wouldn't be so quick to announce it to the world. It's all kinda comical to me now.

Embrace it folks, you are not your job and neither am I.


Brown..out!