Full disclosure: I’m really not a librarian.  Strictly speaking, only those who graduated with an MLS (master of library science) can actually call themselves librarians. The rest of us who work in a library but have a different type of degree are called library assistants. So I thought about naming this column “Once an English Lit Major who worked 43 years as a library assistant,” but that just doesn’t have the right ring, does it?  

  It was Sigmund Freud who said “love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.”

  This month I’d like to talk about what we do for a living and how it fills our lives.  

  I’ve never thought much of self-help books as a whole, because I feel like each individual must figure out his or her own way to navigate their particular life circumstances. But about 20 years ago I read a book called “Real Moments” by psychologist Barbara DeAngelis. If you remember a book from twenty-plus years ago, it must have had some application to your life.  

  The main point of the book was that we should train ourselves to be “in the moment” – to recognize and appreciate those times in our lives that are special  – and not to just rush through them while planning the next thing. (And nowadays I guess you could add “not just recording them with your phone to show them off later.”) But a small portion of the book, and the part that I’ve remembered for so long, is the concept of your job versus your work.

  DeAngelis says your job is what you do to pay your bills and keep food on the table, a necessity. By contrast, your work is what you do that fulfills you in some way. Some people might say that your work is your “calling,” something that feeds your soul. For example, a young man’s job is restaurant cook during the week, and on the weekends his work is serving meals at a homeless shelter. Or a woman’s job is managing an office during the week, and on her off time her work is teaching English to recent immigrants.  

  Sometimes, if we’re very lucky, our job and our work can coincide. Think about those really dedicated nursery school or primary school teachers, who can’t be in it for the money. They must feel a calling to start young children out on the right track to loving and appreciating learning. And who knows what long-term effects they will have on the next generation? And I think the concept of one’s job and one’s work coinciding finds its ultimate expression in professions like social work, the ministry, and nursing. If these people don’t feel a real calling, they don’t last long in these high-stress professions.

  I’m also one of the lucky ones; my job and my work dovetailed perfectly for all my adult life. Not long before I retired a close friend remarked “You grew up here.” And I flippantly replied, “No, I grew old here.” That thought lodged in my mind like a fish hook until it morphed into this small poem that I titled:

THE LIBRARY

I grew here
I grew up here
I grew old here

It was one wild ride
It was one fine time
It was one for the books.

  Whether it is a part of your job or something else entirely, I really hope that you, the reader of these words, have found your work. Happy reading!