Accept Who You Are

As adolescents in America, I think it’s fair to say that we are taught to look towards the higher income and higher educated individuals in our society as people to be emulated.  However, the older I get, the more I recognize that those people couldn’t do their jobs without the support of a whole team of people whose jobs don’t pay the same salary and don’t require the same education.

Let’s use healthcare as an example.  I’ve worked in several hospital settings as an Emergency Services Technician (A Nursing Assistant in the ER) and as a Security Guard.  These are considered support roles to the Doctors/Nurses that work in hospitals.  It takes quite a few different roles to deliver healthcare to a patient in a hospital:

• Techs work in the ER like I did and they also work in every other part of a hospital where patient care is delivered
• Security works everywhere in a hospital.  In many urban areas where hospitals are often located, security plays a massive role in keeping the hospital safe.
• Janitorial Services are obviously extremely important to keeping a hospital clean and sanitary.
• Administrative personnel have a massive job in inputting patient data, managing billing, and, of course, Human Resources.
• Maintenance and Groundskeeping Staff tackle the job of making sure the place doesn’t fall apart.

Theses and many other jobs are required in order to deliver a high quality experience for the patients and guests that visit a hospital.  But often, in my experience, it is the Doctors (and other providers like Physician’s Assistants and Nurse Practitioners), Nurses, and higher level administrators whose roles are given any real level of cultural respect.  I found that respect was often driven by the higher level of income associated with those jobs and the higher level of education required for those jobs.  I understand it, but I used to let it bother me.  I think that frustration was driven by a lack of self-respect and personal anxiety I had about my own future.  

Fortunately, I’ve finally gotten to a place where I recognize the value of my current job not only to my lifestyle, but also its value to our economy.  And no, it doesn’t pay comparatively high versus many other careers, and I’ve literally had a Police Officer laugh at me when he saw me in my Security Guard Uniform.  Security Guards don’t get a ton of respect from people in my experience.  That’s okay.  Disrespect and devaluing can happen to anyone at any socioeconomic level.  (That Police Officer laughed at me back in the Pre-COVID Era.  We all know the field of Law Enforcement has seen quite a tumultuous ride in the last 5-6 years.  Talk about being devalued.)    

To be totally honest, when I first started doing security work five years ago, I felt a bit like a loser.  I had been a single man for 14-15 years at the time.  While I wasn’t in any debt, I didn’t have much in the way of a financial future as I was working on a motivational speaking business that wasn’t bringing in much income or interest.  Being around Doctors and Nurses everyday, I spent way too much time comparing my income to theirs.  Though I knew I was never going to go back to school and I didn’t regret walking away from engineering, I still found myself feeling as though I had failed because I was a security guard.      

I carried that sense of failure for quite a while.  However, in the last couple years I’ve let go of comparison and made peace with where I am in life.  To stop searching for new jobs online, to stop trying the different career certificates that lead to tech jobs, to stop searching for programs that pay for college, to stop hunting for more money… I have spent so much time since I left the military agonizing over whether or not I should pursue a different job making more money.  

I’m interested in fitness and self improvement.  I write and speak about these things.  I’ve worked in a corporate setting, I’ve worked for the government, I’ve worked in hospitals, and I’ve worked for the public school system.  None of those jobs were interesting to me.  In the last year or so, I have finally accepted that I am what I am.  I’m a writer and a speaker focused on self improvement.  That’s what I want to do and that’s what I want to be.  At 42 years old, running from who I am is only wasting time.  At some point, when you’ve explored a reasonable number of other options, you have to accept who you are and make it work.

Have I talked about accepting who you are before?  Most definitely.  Have I had revelations about who I am as a person, the corporate world, and chasing money not meaning anything to me?  Yes.  But revelations happen in a moment and embodying those ideas takes time.  I think I’m finally getting there.  

Again, principle number 2 from my book, Understand Your Story.  I have been working to let go of the conditioning of my upbringing since I left the engineering world in 2006.  That’s 18 years I have been working to rewrite my story of success and shift my beliefs around what  makes a good life.  That’s me actively working on this.  Imagine how adrift a person can find themselves if they’re not working on their own story.  I could have spent the past 18 years being an Engineer and making lots of money, and having lots of prestige bestowed upon me, but being utterly miserable.  Furthermore, our tendency to compare ourselves can steal our joy even when we’re doing the things we actually want to do with our lives.  That’s what I’ve been battling for the last 5 years.  Again, from my book, “Change is the hardest thing we do in life.”  In this case, changing my ideas about work and success.  And it’ll still be a work in progress going forward. 

This is why I push people to take ownership of their actions, beliefs, and direction in life.  If we don’t take control, life will pull us in a thousand different directions.  Maybe by luck you will end up in a good place that aligns with who you are.  But, I think the vast majority of us are going to have to forge a path towards a life that’s fulfilling to us.  Fortunately, if you are an American, there’s plenty of opportunity and freedom to do so.

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