Why I work?

As I sit here thinking of how to kick off this blog in a profound way, I think about all of the people in my life - including my counseling students, my own family, my friends, and myself. So many of our lives are defined by a struggle to manage very full lives in addition to very full work lives.

My own reasons for working have changed and evolved as I've grown and gone through different phases of my life. Ultimately, though, the foundation has always been the same...

I work because I love what I do and want to make a change in peoples' lives. I also do what I do so I can fulfill this really strong internal need I have to be outside.

Finally, family is so important to me that I really need to have plenty of time in my days and weeks to be around my daughter and significant other and my own parents and siblings.

Now, it took me awhile to come to this place where I understand my own reasons for working.

I come from a family of really hard workers - like the kind of parents who fall asleep every time they sat down because they were so tired from working. I'm also a really hard worker. My struggle with working, however, has been complex. When I first went to college, as a first-generation college student, I struggled to conceptualize tasks like studying or writing papers as work. In my mind, they weren't work because they weren't physical. As I've transitioned through my career in counseling - where literally my job was to talk to people all day?!?! - I have come to terms with the fact that work looks like different things and takes on different forms.

My fascination for understanding careers has likely come from my own struggle to consider my own career path.

Today, I am a counselor educator, a career researcher, a work-from-home mom, a mom (I see these as two distinct roles), a dog mom, a daughter and sibling and partner, and I'm an outdoor enthusiast. These are the roles that define me.

And because my brain is as messy as my desk (and my child), you're going to find that I'll be blogging about all of these things in this space. I'll be talking about work-related issues that counselors face, career-related issues, and my more personal journey of working and work/life balance.