I learned some things today.
#1: I tend to forget that I'm allowed to not love things.
I've always been a hardworking, willing-to-pitch-in-wherever-I'm-needed type of person, so it's nearly impossible for me to admit that I don't want to do something. But the truth of the matter is, there are parts of librarianship that I do not want to make the center of my career.
For example, I love helping kids whenever they cross my path, but I knew early on that I don't love them enough to pursue a career in youth services. Rather than working with just kids, I prefer the variety of helping all ages at the reference desk.
This is something I've been able to admit I don't love, but there are plenty of examples of things I haven't simply because I haven't stopped to realize that I don't really love them enough.
#2: I still care far too much about what other people think.
I spent today preparing for an interview I didn't want to go to, but everyone kept telling me that in my current situation I really can't turn down any job offer that comes my way. I also really liked the director that I was going to be interviewing with and thought that she would think less of me if I didn't go through with the interview for this position.
The thing was, I was going nuts preparing for this interview. I came up with any and every excuse I could to avoid thinking about it. At the last moment I pulled together the assignment I was supposed to bring to the interview, but on the way there I realized an obvious point that I had completely forgotten about. Suddenly I did not want to go to this interview. I didn't want to fix the thing I'd forgotten today because I knew that I didn't want to be responsible for those details on a day-to-day basis.
But I couldn't cancel at this point. That would make me look even worse to this director I wanted to impress. What kind of crazy person cancels an interview at the last minute? This crazy person, that's who. Because I'd waited so long to listen to myself over everyone else, I did what I'd wanted to do all along at the least helpful time for everyone involved.
#3: I don't love programming.
Even though it became a big part of my last job, that was because no one else wanted to do anything for teens at our library and I thought that was a terrible denial of service to an important segment of our population. So I learned that I can do programming and I'm not terrible at it.
But to be perfectly honest, every month when I had to nail down the schedule for my programs for the next month, the stress I felt nearly caused a panic attack. For what ever reasons programming is a challenge my brain is not wired to love.
So I don't want to work in youth services and I don't want focus on programming, but I don't mind a little work in either of those categories and really there are plenty of things I would be happy to focus on.
Teaching, for example, is an area where I had only slightly more background than programming when I started doing it at my last job, yet I loved the challenge of creating classes that not only got across useful information, but were fun too. It seemed like people learned more when they were having fun and I loved seeing that light bulb turn on when a student suddenly got it. That was when I remembered why I signed up to teach so many computer classes, even though I didn't have to.
#1: I tend to forget that I'm allowed to not love things.
I've always been a hardworking, willing-to-pitch-in-wherever-I'm-needed type of person, so it's nearly impossible for me to admit that I don't want to do something. But the truth of the matter is, there are parts of librarianship that I do not want to make the center of my career.
For example, I love helping kids whenever they cross my path, but I knew early on that I don't love them enough to pursue a career in youth services. Rather than working with just kids, I prefer the variety of helping all ages at the reference desk.
This is something I've been able to admit I don't love, but there are plenty of examples of things I haven't simply because I haven't stopped to realize that I don't really love them enough.
#2: I still care far too much about what other people think.
I spent today preparing for an interview I didn't want to go to, but everyone kept telling me that in my current situation I really can't turn down any job offer that comes my way. I also really liked the director that I was going to be interviewing with and thought that she would think less of me if I didn't go through with the interview for this position.
The thing was, I was going nuts preparing for this interview. I came up with any and every excuse I could to avoid thinking about it. At the last moment I pulled together the assignment I was supposed to bring to the interview, but on the way there I realized an obvious point that I had completely forgotten about. Suddenly I did not want to go to this interview. I didn't want to fix the thing I'd forgotten today because I knew that I didn't want to be responsible for those details on a day-to-day basis.
But I couldn't cancel at this point. That would make me look even worse to this director I wanted to impress. What kind of crazy person cancels an interview at the last minute? This crazy person, that's who. Because I'd waited so long to listen to myself over everyone else, I did what I'd wanted to do all along at the least helpful time for everyone involved.
#3: I don't love programming.
Even though it became a big part of my last job, that was because no one else wanted to do anything for teens at our library and I thought that was a terrible denial of service to an important segment of our population. So I learned that I can do programming and I'm not terrible at it.
But to be perfectly honest, every month when I had to nail down the schedule for my programs for the next month, the stress I felt nearly caused a panic attack. For what ever reasons programming is a challenge my brain is not wired to love.
So I don't want to work in youth services and I don't want focus on programming, but I don't mind a little work in either of those categories and really there are plenty of things I would be happy to focus on.
Teaching, for example, is an area where I had only slightly more background than programming when I started doing it at my last job, yet I loved the challenge of creating classes that not only got across useful information, but were fun too. It seemed like people learned more when they were having fun and I loved seeing that light bulb turn on when a student suddenly got it. That was when I remembered why I signed up to teach so many computer classes, even though I didn't have to.
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