Occupations

One of the issues that inspired the title of this blog is that little space you see on forms called "Occupation." There is even one on the User Profile section of this blog. I used to get a little thrill from writing "Systems Analyst" or "Computer Consultant" into that space. I had a title and I felt pretty darned important. Nowadays, I find that I have no idea what to write in that space.

What do people really want to know about me, anyway? Is it how I earn money? Is it my professional designation? Is it how I spend most of my time? Is it what I value most?

I find myself answering the question differently depending on what I'm trying to accomplish. If I'm trying to make a point, I will simply write "MOTHER." I don't think it makes one whit of difference if I'm a "stay-at-home-mother" or a "working mother." I am a 24-hour a day mother whether I'm getting paid or not. I have actually received praise from others when they see that on my form.

If I'm trying to impress people, I might say that I'm a real estate investor, or that I manage real estate. If I only want to impress them a little bit, or I don't want to sound like I'm showing off, I might simply say that I run a home-based business. Let them use their imaginations.

If I'm trying to put someone at ease, I'll just say that I'm a babysitter, or that I take in kids after school. If I really want to throw people off, I call myself a teacher. It's technically true, even though my only students are my own children, and possibly my niece and nephew.

The word "occupation" sounds like it should have something to do with what occupies my time. If I think about what takes up the most hours in a day, it's a toss-up between "PARENTING" and "HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT," which includes cooking, cleaning, laundry, paying bills, yard work, shopping, and errands.

If I really dig deeply, what I believe my most important occupation here is, the one objective that runs through all the different aspects and eras of my life, it is simply to become more human. Ewww, that sounds corny. Achieving spiritual enlightenment? Spiritual discipline? Wisdom? Obviously, I'm still learning, because I don't quite have the right words for it.

I'm going to borrow a little section from Rachel Naomi Remen's essay "Getting Clear" in her book My Grandfather's Blessings:

"Many years ago, as I was trying to sort myself out from the ways I had lived and inhabit the way that I am, my companion in this process, a therapist, had given me the gift of an exquisite antique silver bracelet. She had it engraved with the single word clear.

She had known that a silver bracelet was something that I would take seriously. For more than a year I never took it off. A few months after she gave it to me, I asked her why she had had it engraved wit the word clear and not with my name. 'Look it up,' she said, 'but only in a very large dictionary.'

I looked it up in the Random House Dictionary of the English Language and found that it had more than sixty meanings, many of which have to do with freedom: free from obstruction; free from guilt; free from blame; free from confusion; free from entanglement; free from limitation; free from debt; free from impurities; free from suspicion; free from illusion; free from doubt; free from uncertainty; free from ambiguity; and so on. And, of course, its ultimate meaning, which is 'able to serve perfectly in the passage of light.'

Sometimes it takes a lifetime to become clear. No matter. It may be the most worthwhile way to spend the time."

I read that book over a year ago, and those words keep coming back to me. So, perhaps my true occupation is simply to become clear.