Have you ever wondered what the most difficult job in the world is?A job that doesn’t end? Most wouldn’t want it to. A job where there is no interview, no proving your ability. No sick pay or holidays. No leave of absence. No contract of employment and never a retirement plan. There is no clocking off, taking time out. Even changing the job once begun. This job will go on for the rest of your life with no career breaks. You may do other jobs at the same time but they must ‘fit in’ with the commitments of your chosen lifelong job. Would you still take it? Sometimes we do without realising the commitment, pain and joy it will bring.
It doesn’t matter how many roles you have in this position, this main part of the job must always come first and sometimes that is so hard, sometimes circumstances make it take a bit of a back seat, you have to take on other work,so that you can earn the money to continue this job and make up financial shortfall.
The job sometimes changes. Others around you change, those you do the job for. Relationships fail, alter and although change happens, the one thing that is resolute in this job, your job, is you.People change, situations change. Things go wrong and life gets in the way. But you still feel the same about this role.You can be tried, pushed to your limits by life itself, get confused, muddled and sometimes angry but the feelings about the job don’t change. Sometimes life is hard, almost impossible to cope with and impossible to understand. No one could prepare you for this. No course, no teaching, schools colleges, nothing.
It doesn’t matter how many times you have do the night shift. Cancel plans made. Be called upon when trying to relax, you do your job to the best of your ability and no one can expect or ask more of you. When outside influences affect the smooth running of this path you are on, you will always do your best. Sometimes not good enough, but always your best. When change comes and you disapprove or don’t like how things are going, you may say how you feel, you may utter your disapproval but your feelings never falter.You are still there, doing your job, doing your best. Life changes. Life happens but you still are the person who embarked on this ‘career’, even if others wish it would change. Even when given ‘notice’ to quit, you refuse to go. You know how hard you are finding it, trying to manouvre around obstacles, pain, fear but you are expected to still do the job 100% well. No thought given for how life is really making you struggle, no thought for what else is happening in your mind, your thoughts, your heart, your life. This job has to continue and you have to do it well.Some may see you as a failure at times, but they need to see it from your perspective. How life was for you. They will always see it differently and you shouldn’t expect anything different. We all see and experience life from our own perspective don’t we.
It doesn’t matter how many roles you are given, they may be added to or changed but the feelings around them never change. The fears and hopes are the same. Different in one way but the same depth as they have always been. Why? Because willingly or not, if you are lucky, you are well equipped to manage these changes. If you are lucky, you will have inherited the right credentials, skills sets, maybe not qualifications because there aren’t any. No one and nothing can prepare you for this very important,exacting job. It is always a challenge and a great deal of learning ‘on the job’.
From the minute you know you are ‘recruited’, you are excited, and promise you will do it to your very best ability and nothing will change your resolve. If you are lucky, you draw on something sometimes hidden deep inside of you, to be able to invest in from the start. One emotion. One natural instinct. One quality. All wrapped up in one word. Love.
Is it a good job? Yes the best.
Can be the best and the worst.
Is it a hard job? Yes but sometimes very easy.
Would you change it? Never. With the pain and worry it can bring, one might wonder why we stay emotionally, but we do.
The fear or threat of losing this role, can sometimes be so scary that we panic, behave out of character. With most jobs we can plan a retirement, a future with the job just a memory but not this one. There is no retirement and no ending and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Can you leave the job? Some do. Some can.
Can you be sacked? Some can. Some should be.
Can you fail and become surplus to requirements? Yes, in the eyes of others maybe but to you, the job continues, never ends. You never stop. Never ‘don’t care’. Never ‘move on’. That is the true meaning of unconditional love. The epitomy of the description of a Mum .
If I was given a chance to go back, would I still take the job? Knowing what I know now would I have embarked on this journey? In a heart beat. No hesitation. The good outweighs the bad. The happy times make memories I hold dear forever. No-one can take them from me.
If I could change anything would I? Yes!
Firstly I would find the ‘worry ‘ button and switch it off. I have wasted so much time worrying and it changed nothing. So it would be switched off permanently.
I would like a contract drawn up and it would look like this.
That allowance is made for my humanity, my flaws, my deficiencies and that I am given the chance to be wrong and not expected to be perfect.Given the chance to be human. Given the chance to be me, warts’n all.
That this clause be given to others in the relationships.
That all involved would acknowledge each others fallibility.
That the unconditional love would go both ways.
That we all learn to forgive and forget.
If I had a chance to go back to the beginning.
But I don’t. We don’t.
This was written a few weeks ago, not for the blog , just for me but I had an email yesterday from an old client and so am posting this today. I hope it helps.
Thank your reading xx
carolannwright 