There are more occupations out there than I can count. The things that people do to make money. To earn a living. To provide for themselves and for their families.
Some people, are driven their entire lives, by the “thing” they want to do. These are the ones that we see on TV, and the interviewer says to that individual, “Dr. Darramond. How did you know you wanted to be an Entomologist?”
“Well, Ken, I was about three years old when I decided. I was at a picnic with my Mom and Dad and my big sister Clem, and a long line of ants marched through, and went right up a rubber tree plant. They seemed to have high hopes. So right then and there I decided I would devote the rest of my life to the study of bugs, in general.”
“Amazing, Dr. Darramond. May I call you Bob?”
“No. I’ve earned three doctorates in bugs. You can call me Dr. Darramond.”
So yes. Some people are like little Bobby and his bugs. They just know.
Other people skid from one thing to the next. One day, they may be working at a newspaper, and a month later, they might be slinging drinks at some bar downtown. Only to spend the rest of their lives, knocking out some useless blog every night.
We just never know what someone’s occupation may be by looking at them.
I had a hernia operation about five months ago. When I met my surgeon, he looked like he should be playing some Playstation 4 somewhere.
The things we do depend on many factors, it is true. Some people are good at fixing meals. Others are amazing at fixing cars. And still other are aces at fixing loans. It all depends.
In the state of Ohio, the biggest employer is Walmart, accounting for 49,330 Ohioans on a daily basis. But, they are also the biggest in a lot of states, including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Texas, Virginia, and many more.
In fact, Walmart is by far the largest employer in the United States. They, the Walmart Blue, employ about 1.5 million Americans. Amazon comes in second. They have about 400,000 people in the United States working at their little bookstore.
I did not suppose they are the highest paying though, so I looked it up.
The top paying job in America is an Anesthesiologist with a mean salary of $265,990 per year. The next dozen spots on the list were all in the medical profession, consisting of various surgeons, and doctors, and psychiatrists, and on.
The first falling outside of medicine came in at Number 12 — a Petroleum Engineer.
There are a lot of people who write “Self-Help” books for a living. In many of those books, they tell people that in order to be happy, you have to love what you do. This is very easy for them to say. They are loving writing these books and making money from others quests for self-improvement.
Sometimes, it is not possible to get paid for what we love to do. I know a lot of people who truly LOVE to eat ice cream. A lot of people. But I have yet to meet one who gets paid for it. Same goes for chocolate.
This whole business can be rather tricky. There are those people who enjoy their jobs and they are good at it. We can spot these people immediately, because they are generally pleasant, and highly effective in the skill set of their professions.
Then, there are those people who simply don’t know.
We don’t know what we want to do.
No matter what, we are all different in this way.
And in countless other ways.
But one thing in common, we are trying to make it.
Yet, our professions don’t define us. It is our character which does so.
And in being our best selves, no matter what we are doing, we find that better part of us. Our true north. And, each day, we make the world a little better, by something that we do.
The best way we know how.
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“I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”
― Jerome K. Jerome
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“I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early.”
― Charles Lamb
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“In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.”
― Leo Tolstoy
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