One thing that I have learned over the last 8 years is that I give too much to everything and everyone around me. I tend to give 110% to everything I do, which sometimes makes me seem incredibly bi-polar. One day I can totally love what I'm doing, then the next completely hate it because its taken/taking too much out of me. There are so many examples of this in my life...
The biggest example is that I love working, to the point of often being considered a workaholic. I think the main thing is that I like manual labor, the punishment and pain it takes to keep up with the men that do the same work. The part that makes me hate work is that I'm always driven to be the best at everything that I do, and I'm not that great at very much. The biggest perk of working for me is that I love saving money, saving to build an emergency fund, saving for the next big purchase I have planned, just saving to be saving, and having a job makes that possible.
Currently I like to say that I hate my job, and I just want to find one that's better. The reality is that I just don't like cooking or otherwise working with food. I love being called over to the register lanes or being asked to help with stocking or straightening, and I especially love helping bring the carts back in. I love the people that I work with, and that's mainly what keeps me there. I would say that I was made for retail, but I don't like the confinement of such a job either. It works for a means to an end, but not as a permanent solution.
I also love school, and I love to hate it. I love it as long as I'm getting straight A's, but as soon as I start slipping a little and I get less than an A on a project or other assignment, I can't help myself, I naturally start hating school and everything that it stands for. I also hate it because all of my friends from my first year of University are either in a career in their field or they are in grad school. You would think that if there is so much that I hate about school, I might just give up, but I can't. I love learning so much that I can't help myself, and I want what I know to actually count for something and help me do better for my family. I also want everyone to understand mathematics, especially now that I'm trying to become a teacher.
Another thing that I love is my family. I love the hard work and dedication that it takes to be a mother and a wife. I love my husband and my son. The funny thing is that I very much dislike the work associated. I wouldn't consider it quite to the point of hatred, but I really don't like the idea of doing housework. Maybe its because it seems that I'm always in a losing battle because I can't keep even one room of the house clean, maybe its because it feels like I'm the only one that actually cares to try to keep the house clean.
The last thing that I'm going to mention that I hate is probably something I share with at least 90% of the entire world over 24. I hate getting older. I mean, legitimately, infuriating, encompassing hatred. There is so much that I want to do before I'm too old to do it, but there's just not time or money for such endeavors. I hate that I forget how old I am, or more that I'm not the age that I think I am and feel like I am. I swear, other than still carrying a few too many pounds since my son was born, I still feel like I'm 18. I still want to do the same things that I did then. I had two full time jobs and still managed to find the time to ride my bike and my horse all the time. I can't even find the time to get my bike out of the shed to ride two doors down to see my horse now, and I don't understand why.
I think that the main thing that makes me who I am, especially in relation to the things I just mentioned, is that I have a major lazy streak. I like things that come easy. I like hard work that pays well, I like school when I can understand and keep up with minimal effort, I like spending time with my family without having to work to keep the house clean, and I like feeling and looking young and fit while sitting on the couch eating all day long. I have to constantly remind myself that not only did I marry a good cook, but as I get older my metabolism, brain, and body just can't keep up with the abuse that I put it through when I was younger. I need to get the right amount of sleep, exercise more, eat right, drink enough water, and study hard. The rest comes naturally. I will probably always love to hate what I do for work, when I'm a teacher I will probably love my students and teaching them what I know all the while hating the actual work of putting together my lesson plan.
The moral to all this: nothing comes on a silver platter. You have to do things that you don't like, even hate, to get to enjoy the things that you love. Its probably the hatred that you have that makes you love the things that you do anyway. This is as much for me to remember as anyone else.
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