Life the Universe and Everything
Yes, the answer is 42, but I have the feeling that the questions are much more important and they aren't so obvious.
The online journaling movement, at least the piece I see, seems fond of memes, quizzes and questionnaires - they break the ice of the blank page, inspire thought (and, often, humor), bring out information one might not have thought to write about. Combine this with the tarot exercises, which are much more obviously for those purposes, and something happens; we shift perspective, we see a fork in the road or a sign beside the path, a thought occurs to us and our feet go in a different direction. To bring the gathering of life elements up to another level, one of my younger co-workers asked me just the other day why I was working at the company (this same young man gave me the name and number of a headhunter who has a local management job, paying almost twice my current salary, that he is trying to fill). I don't usually tell the younger folks that the choice of staying in a lower-paying job may be a matter of how it fits into your 'real' life outside the workplace; I dissemble into how difficult I have found it to market my aging self, how poor the job market is locally and how much I dislike 'corporate' atmospheres.
So, what's a job, a career, a life's work, a monument to one's existence? Yes, I'm falling all the way back to definitions, like a good little pagan who has seen one too many conversation turn into an argument over 'what's a witch?' For me, the 'job' is that place you go because they pay you. By inference, you wouldn't go if there wasn't money involved; you're not doing it for free. The next step, alright, perhaps all the 'pay' isn't financial - the job is a steppingstone to someplace else, usually better. You are getting experience, you are learning how to perform a task, how to manuver amongst coworkers, how to accomplish tasks as a team, whatever: you are preparing for a promotion, often at another organization that just doesn't know it yet (promote-from-within doesn't seem to be a favored management technique anymore). The 'job' has become part of a 'career' - you want to do a certain type of work or work in a particular field or have some greater goal in mind that the 'job' is a part of. Wanting to 'Leave your Mark', as a goal, is a sign of either of two things: megalomania or extreme altruism (which can be the same thing): you want to be a dictator, a CEO and/or change the world. That leaves 'a life's work' as needing clarification.
We wear so many hats. I wonder how many men list 'husband and father' under 'jobs' they do? Okay, that was just an aside. The 'wife and mother' things are part of the 'life's work': what we accomplish over the span of years that the Norns alot us. Part of my purpose in the web has been spiritual in nature: I performed a handfasting, I have had a certain amount of influence with the other pagans I have worked with (none of this 'influence over' - the semantics are quite deliberate), and I have affected the thinking of several prominent people and caused organizations to shift. It is amazing what interesting little questions can do or what well-placed observations can inspire. 'Doubt', once subtly introduced, will shift someone's perspective; faith and belief are never the same again. The 'life's work' is one area that is less like a box where I put certain activities and more like a patchwork which is continually being added to. I have no idea how big it is going to be and my design will never have a border (just certain elements may stop re-appearing); may it never stop growing.
The online journaling movement, at least the piece I see, seems fond of memes, quizzes and questionnaires - they break the ice of the blank page, inspire thought (and, often, humor), bring out information one might not have thought to write about. Combine this with the tarot exercises, which are much more obviously for those purposes, and something happens; we shift perspective, we see a fork in the road or a sign beside the path, a thought occurs to us and our feet go in a different direction. To bring the gathering of life elements up to another level, one of my younger co-workers asked me just the other day why I was working at the company (this same young man gave me the name and number of a headhunter who has a local management job, paying almost twice my current salary, that he is trying to fill). I don't usually tell the younger folks that the choice of staying in a lower-paying job may be a matter of how it fits into your 'real' life outside the workplace; I dissemble into how difficult I have found it to market my aging self, how poor the job market is locally and how much I dislike 'corporate' atmospheres.
So, what's a job, a career, a life's work, a monument to one's existence? Yes, I'm falling all the way back to definitions, like a good little pagan who has seen one too many conversation turn into an argument over 'what's a witch?' For me, the 'job' is that place you go because they pay you. By inference, you wouldn't go if there wasn't money involved; you're not doing it for free. The next step, alright, perhaps all the 'pay' isn't financial - the job is a steppingstone to someplace else, usually better. You are getting experience, you are learning how to perform a task, how to manuver amongst coworkers, how to accomplish tasks as a team, whatever: you are preparing for a promotion, often at another organization that just doesn't know it yet (promote-from-within doesn't seem to be a favored management technique anymore). The 'job' has become part of a 'career' - you want to do a certain type of work or work in a particular field or have some greater goal in mind that the 'job' is a part of. Wanting to 'Leave your Mark', as a goal, is a sign of either of two things: megalomania or extreme altruism (which can be the same thing): you want to be a dictator, a CEO and/or change the world. That leaves 'a life's work' as needing clarification.
We wear so many hats. I wonder how many men list 'husband and father' under 'jobs' they do? Okay, that was just an aside. The 'wife and mother' things are part of the 'life's work': what we accomplish over the span of years that the Norns alot us. Part of my purpose in the web has been spiritual in nature: I performed a handfasting, I have had a certain amount of influence with the other pagans I have worked with (none of this 'influence over' - the semantics are quite deliberate), and I have affected the thinking of several prominent people and caused organizations to shift. It is amazing what interesting little questions can do or what well-placed observations can inspire. 'Doubt', once subtly introduced, will shift someone's perspective; faith and belief are never the same again. The 'life's work' is one area that is less like a box where I put certain activities and more like a patchwork which is continually being added to. I have no idea how big it is going to be and my design will never have a border (just certain elements may stop re-appearing); may it never stop growing.