My Dream Job

When you're a little kid and someone asks you what you want to be when you grow up, you have awesome answers like a Ninja Turtle or a Ghostbuster (well that was my brother and his friend, anyway). When I was 11, I wanted to be an author. By 16 I was sure I wanted to major in musical theater and be an actress. By the age of 19 I decided a major in musical theater meant a career as a waitress and switched to teaching. And now I'm 31 and I want to be an author. Funny how that works out.

At one of the schools I teach at, they interviewed me as a 'new' teacher (even though I've worked there before - whatever) and the student asked me the following question...

Is teaching your dream job?

So I, like any honest person, said no. And when I read the articles later, I was the only one who said no. I kinda felt like a jerk, but I didn't want to lie to the kid. I'm sure nobody read it, so it's not really a big deal, but seriously? Maybe teaching is a dream job for some people, but I call shenanigans because I can't imagine out of 20 people that I was the only one who thought teaching wasn't my dream job. (*Disclaimer* - I did say it was a good job, just not my DREAM job.)

When I think of a dream job, I think of what I would do if money were no object. A dream job is the job you don't have to get up at 5AM for. A dream job is one I can do from a lounge chair on the beach. But in all honesty, my dream job would be to not have to have a job at all. I suppose that is cheating though. I won't say a dream job shouldn't require you to work hard. I love to write and would be insanely happy if that alone was my job. It's hard sometimes, but the fact that you're creating something makes it so fulfilling for me. I suppose people could say the same about teaching. But again, no early mornings and beach as the office? I would say writing wins. Hands down. Now, only if it could pay the same...hmmm.