What do you do for a living?

What do you do for a living?
Oh! the anxiety that question brings.

I remember going for events, get-togethers, and soon as everyone gets settled, the ‘how are you or ‘where have you been’ starts getting thrown around. I know what follows is something like ‘where are you now, what do you do now’ or ‘are you still an xxx’ insert your career choice when you were five years old. I don’t know about everyone, but I dreaded those questions, not necessarily because I wasn’t doing well for myself, Nah thats’ far from it. I am doing okay, but it was the fact that I’d have to do an outstanding job at explaining what that was else, it would seem like I had no direction with my life, and I hated to feel that way.

Here’s what I resulted to doing, I would say the one that gave tingles in the ears, you know those professions you hear, and you’re immediately taken seriously, as the doctors and engineers and architects. (no offense to the other disciplines *side-eyes*), so I’d say I’m an Architect! You see, that title always spoke for itself, and of course, it made sense; I went to school for years and bagged a master’s, so why not? I kid you not; my reality is a big mix of everything.

My passion had spread to a lot that’s ‘not boxed in.’ I have become ‘a creative,’ but how could you explain that. How could I explain to many people that I’m deciding to bloom from something that couldn’t be defined, from a passion and skill so diverse but yet rich? What I do for a living, where I work is only how I define it. It’s not a 4-year course with all the 11 syllabi that should be completed. No, it’s everything about creativity as a skill, designing, marketing, whatever, etc. It’s all and every one of those branches I can’t list.

From my personal experience from getting asked that question, I do not ask others when I meet them; I regard that as none of my business and not a defining factor to how I respect them or acknowledge them. I consciously realize that while my own irk might be the turn-off in having to define my creativity, for some others, it might be because they aren’t even anywhere.  So until people decide to talk with you on the subject or put that information forward on their own, you shouldn’t meet people and ask that question even before you’ve noted their first names. Now, if you put that information forward first, do not do so because you want an answer, do it because that’s what you intended, just that.

In the end, I’m in the school of thought that when I meet someone, it’s not the first thing I want to figure out immediately; that comes at one point depending on where we get on networking and if we are networking.

It’s tricky; be sensitive, it’s difficult for most to leave their comfort zones already, and No One Knows.

What do you do for a living?