Careers

I never thought that I'd admit this, but I really don't mind going to work.  I wish I didn't have to, but I am overall enjoying my job.  Though, I have to admit, I had a situation at work recently that really makes me wonder if I really want to continue down the road of social work.  The situation wasn't directly related to my job, but it reminded me of some of the politics regarding utilization of people's insurance and the questionable ethics of some nursing homes.  I have seen it before, and I know it often happens, I just hate that business gets involved in people's lives.  I won't say more than that except, it is making me think that I really want to branch out on my own and do something that utilizes my social work background, but that maybe uses my love of creativity.

I often write about how I love to be creative and how I wish that I could make a living at this.  I do like working with people, so I don't think that I just want to pursue an artist's life in a studio by myself.  I have these visions of working with people using creativity as a therapeutic tool, just not in a clinical way.  I would love to show people that finding a way to be creative can help with stress.  I actually wrote a paper in grad school about using scrapbooking/journaling as a therapeutic tool in working with older adults and their families and those dealing with end of life issues.  I was actually able to tie it into the therapeutic modalities that I believed that I would use in practice.  At this point though, I'm not sure that I want to deal with the whole insurance situation.  I would rather use my social work background as a way to work with people, again not clinically, but I would at least be able to refer someone if I thought they needed more help.

Sometimes I think I would love to go back to school and get out of social work all together.  I think I would love to pursue a career that is more of a holistic nature, even though as a social worker you are to look at the whole person.  In reality though, that doesn't happen the way I would want it to.  I want to learn more about cooking and eating healthy (eventhough I don't always follow my own advice), aromatherapy and how it can benefit mind/body/soul, art therapy, journaling as therapy, yoga and other mind body activities, and anything else that is similar in nature.

I really do like my job and the agency that I work for.  I love the hours and the people I work with.  This is one of the few times that I can say that even though I don't like going to work, it's not because I don't like the job.  The reality is that I don't like going to work because life would be easier if I only had to take care of my kids.  Unfortunately, I need to go to work to help pay for things, and it is nice to actually use the degree that I spent time and money getting.

One day I really will figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

Amy