Why do jobs/careers difine us?

I find when I meet new people the ask what I do, or what I want to do in the future. People are always shocked when I say I don't know. To be honest I don't think many people do so why do we lie? I feel it is because people define us and our success and who we are though this. Why does a job define us? Is someone who emptys bins for a living lesser of a person than a pilot? or is a teacher more important than someone who is unemployed?

As some one who has worked in many areas and had many different jobs, taken me to other contries or just cleaning toilets, I have met many people, all of whom have great worth and mean no less or more than anyone else. So why do we put this importance on jobs and careers. Why is this the norm? Why when we meet people do we not try and find out who they are rather then what job do you do? oh that must mean that you are like such and such.

I get anxious when I think about my future andwhat my future job might be. Society says that I should know what my career is going to be, when I am going to start a family, when I will own my own house. This makes me axious as some days waking up in the morning is a task. Somedays I get into bed and think I made it through the day with out crying. If you are having one of those days, Congrats you are doing great and you have worth. That is something I wish people said to me more often, not what do you do? What are your plans for your future? You do't have plans for the future? You have to have plans for the future? How can you not?

I will tell you how! I am living in the day and feeling Gods love, I am recovering one step at a time from not thinking i am going to be able to make it out of bed some days. I am not there yet but i am getting there. Thinking about careers and jobs is hard and scares me and makes me anxious, there is a big world out there to concore and it is overwhelming. My job does not define me, so you shouldn't define me by it and I won't define you by yours. It is a way to make money, for some people it is a passion and a calling for others not. So please don't judge.

Don't Judge Myself By My Cover

Today I went shopping for clothes. I hate shopping for clothes. I hate having to choose something that has a number on it bigger than I would like. Over the past year I have put on weight, and normally I am confident and happy with my body. Today I was not. I was pinning my worth, my abilities to a a two didget number on the inside of an item of clothing that only I have to see. When a number that was bigger than last year was the number that fit me in one shop but the same number was too small in another I cried. Why oes a 2 didget number affect me so much? My age is a two didget number and that affects me no where near the same amount, All my friends are "Further on" with their lives than me at the same age, but it is the hidden number that affects me. When someone finds out what the hidden number is they don't believe that it is correct. They tell me I have a beautiful curvey figure and I'm stunning, everything a girl wants to hear, But I don't listen. I listen to the voice in my head saying this hidden number means you are worthless, you will never achieve anything, no one will love you, you are useless, you will never have a boyfriend/husband/family. Why do I let it tell me these lies?! I felt really bad about all this then I thought to myself I will just return the clothes that didn't fit and buy something else. Shopping shouldn't be a dreaded thing that will bring on all these feelings I am a strong, beautiful, loved woman of God and o one can say otherwise not even this hidden number in my clothes!

Life doesnt come with an instruction manual

Today was a bit of a bad day. Today I wanted the day to be over. Today I wanted an instruction manual that said "Do this, this and this and that, that, amd that will happen and you will feel this.", but life doesn't have one of those, oh how different, easy, predictable, uneventful, boring and underwhelming life would be. At least then I wouldn't have days like this. Life is a sign post with to many signs to see, print so small you can't see, and you never are allowed down the roads allocated to each sign as no one lives in the same way and everyone has to carve thier own road in life.

Life is an information board with no information on it (like the one above, which i saw as I walked along the beach today), Life is like an instruction manual in every language except the ones you can speak. This can make life magical, beautiful, indescribable, overwhelming, panic filled, scary, hard to bare, suffocating.... it can make it anything and everything. But today, for me, it was hard. And on days like this my mind wonders to all the things that could be better in my life, dreams that I want to happen and my mind twist things, doubting myself, making things worse then the are in my head, and no matter how hard I try I cant get out of the head space. Even if life had less sign posts I still wouldn't know where I was ment to go.

People keep telling me that I can controll how I feel and I can choose to be Happy. But how?? I really don't understand that, maybe when I look back at this time i will think how silly I was for not knowing that I can choose to feel happy when I feel so down. I saw somewhere a quote (I love quotes), it said something along the lines of; Telling someone who has deprestion that they have lots to be happy about is like telling some who is asthmatic they should be able to breath as there is lots of air. Which I agree with, so many people don't understand mental health and the issue you can have with it. On days like today i feel like I am stuck on a path leading somewhere you can see with no one or nothing around you, and the wind and the cold and the rain are pushing you back, and you take one step forward to only take it back again. Today was a bit of a bad day, but at least I have tomorrow.