WHAT IS YOUR OCCUPATION?

How many times are we asked 'what is your occupation?' It is as if who we are is defined solely by what our occupation is.  Think about it. Does anyone ever ask 'who are you, what are you living for, what makes your heart sing, what brings you joy and laughter, what makes you cry?'

"What was my occupation?  I finally gave up and said "Person." ~ M.C. Richards

 



I thought about this quote this morning as I was waiting to get my blood drawn yet again, for a problem yet determined. The young Hispanic lady came into the room with no smile on her face and looking very tired and bored and facing yet another day, just like the day before and the day before that. 

I shivered and expressed how chilly it was outside and how strange that was after two days ago it was a balmy 87 degrees.  The conversation proceeded to how blessed we are in South Texas to have it 52 degrees outside, when the east coast is experiencing blizzards. 

 

The ice was broken and she began to smile. As she started drawing three containers of blood. she began telling me, with great exuberance, how she had stopped her car on the way to work because there was an Axis deer crossing the freeway.  "Everyone was slowing down and I pulled over to get a picture of it."  With a most endearing expression she giggled and said, 'I just felt so Mexican.'

 

I smiled and wished her a beautiful day, as I shared her joy. I didn't have to think twice about what her occupation was.  I already knew.  But in the few short minutes I was with her, I knew she was a good person, a kind person, a person who wanted to share the excitement and thrill of seeing an Axis deer on her way to work... a deer "with the largest and longest horns I have ever seen."  I knew instantly what made her heart sing in just less than five minutes.

 

Our days are filled with joys and sorrows, successes and failures.  Sometimes we have to look for them and sometimes we have to engage another 'person' in conversation and look beyond their occupation. It is then we allow them to be real.

 

Today it might be fun to pose the question as to who you are.  Not what you do. What do you stand for and why?

  

As for me, I am a person who stands for sanity, safety, respect, love, pursuing my hopes, passion, and above all helping those that need it the most, those who are lost, sick, weak, wounded, fragile, injured ~ those whose essential condition is fractured and in need of mending, understanding, and desperately needing to be heard. People whose inner wells are depleted and dry. This is my passion and my mission.

 

Don't wait for people to be friendly, show them how. Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude to you ~ not because they aren't nice, but because you are.

 

 

 

There are way too many people out there that are too busy, too insensitive, too uncaring, too preoccupied, as they go steamrolling through their days, missing many, many cues, sailing right past choice moments never to be repeated where they could have made a difference in a life just by holding a hand, saying they understand, that they care, and offering hope. Wrapping your arms around someone who is in pain and afraid can often mean the world.  It tells them they are not alone and that you, deep down inside, truly care about them as a person.

 

"When we feel love and kindness towards others, it not only makes other feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness an peace. ~ Dalai Lama