My favorite job

What was my favorite job?

For someone who has bellyached the most about retiring too soon. I don't know.

I've been reading others who joined the blog hop on A Life Examined by Michael G D'Agostino.

My experience with work was I owe, I owe, its off to work I go. The spectre of poverty has hung over my head my entire life and taken so much joy from it. My parents grew up in dire straits during the depression of the 1930s and the scarring was passed down. The South suffered the most in the depression.

The South has had a system where wealth was concentrated with a few and most people lived on quite paltry sums of money. Pierce Butler, lived in Philidelphia, was a congressman from South Carolina and owned the largest amount of slaves before the civil war. His grandson who was also named Pierce Butler, sold off a large amount of slaves to settle debt. So many families were broken and separated by this event. Fanny Kemble and Pierce Butler

That shadow still haunts Georgia. You have islands of prosperity such as Atlanta and military installations contrasted with huge stretches of cotton mill wage places.

I retired early to take care of family members. The recognition that earning money was not the only important thing in my life was a jolt. I initially started writing to  Make Money. Now I know, you don't write to make money.

I don't have the money I had. I have had to learn to live within a budget. However, embracing my creative side has produced a change in personality and confidence. So I have to say, this unpaid hobby of mine has to be my favorite.

Socrates said a life unexamined was a life not worth living. I don't know, shallowness has its own appeal. Writing has made me examine my life and the world in general. When I spent my time chasing my tail, I had no time to really know what was going on.

I have made huge life decisions at times of forced solitude. One momentous one was moving to Atlanta without a job before the summer alotment of my teaching checks stopped. I was working as a peach grader and had a lot of time to think. So I quit, found an apartment in Atlanta and moved. I wound up teaching school again but it was in a better situation with a much better boss. I had some room to grow and relax.

Paid jobs I have had are peach grader, waittress, cafeteria worker, anatomy lab aide, fast food counter help, teacher, grocery checker, check processor, retail sales, non-profit coordinator, school programmer and performer. Each one of them have provided what I wanted, money.

I was a caring teacher. However, I worked for a paycheck. So, when politicians want to pay teachers peanuts, there is going to be a shortage. I almost left two times because the pay was so poor. Working class people can't afford to work for nothing.

This is why I put the purple in a red state. I appreciate the values of hard work and independence. I have been blessed with a job most of my life. I just know the Koch brothers only value more money for themselves and I am just disposable like the slaves were to Pierce Butler. What I like about writers is so many are independent thinkers. They recognize the vaguries of life.