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“So, what makes you happiest?”

It’s the first thing out of people’s mouths, and I never know what to say. In fact, usually I make things up. I don’t lie and tell them I’m a neurosurgeon — it’s not like that. It’s just that I’ve spent the better part of the last decade searching for my life’s work, and I have found it. The trouble is, I’ve found it several times, in several different things.

They Call Me A Dabbler

It’s a tough word, with more than a few bad connotations. A dabbler is defined as someone who works at something in an “irregular or superficial manner.” It suggests indecision, and uncertainty. It makes me seem unfocused, or undisciplined, even flaky. It sounds like I don’t know what I’m doing when really, that isn’t the case.

I know that I am on my life’s path. It’s just that my path is not a straight line. In just a few years I have been an actor, a teacher, a play therapist for autistic children, a costume designer, a choreographer, a writer, and an interior designer. My resume is vast and varied. But to me, it’s all connected. I’m not jumping from job to job, I’m just using another medium, another skill set, to do the work I’ve always been doing.

You Are What You Say You Are

Words are powerful that way. My definition of success isn’t different than that of, say, someone who has always been a lawyer. My career is just harder to define. But this inability to prove progress has occasionally caused me to look down on myself. I can’t get promoted. I can’t tell you what my next gig will be. My field doesn’t have a name, let alone a ladder to climb. And this is a world that wants some way to measure a person, to classify them. I can understand that. Labels are useful. I just can’t fit all of mine onto my business card.

Dabblers, Unite

I see my career as something larger than the name of my current job, or the title on my desk. I see it as my identity. My Self (and yes, that’s a capital S). I want to be able to tell people who I am in under 15 seconds, but I can’t, and I don’t really believe anyone else can either.

I don’t have an answer, here. I can’t think of a question to ask instead. I just want to value who I am over what I am. I will, and I hope you will too.

And if someone asks, feel free to make something up.

[Photo by ||!prliignore0||]