Better Not

Today I decided to write about everything I’m not, which is a whole lot. Actually, I did narrow it down to professions I once had a fleeting thought about.


I’m not a very ambitious person; I work because I need money. That doesn’t mean I don’t put in the effort, or that I don’t set goals to reach a certain level of experience and skill. I might not be very ambitious, but I am a perfectionist and I want to work at a high level, operations wise. In other words, I do set goals for my personal development.

Beside that, since I have to be at work for eight hours a day, I might just as well try to make the best of it, without upsetting myself that I’m not operating at a high level. I think, that’s my lifeline.

Looking back at what I’ve done so far in my professional life, I’m not best of the class, I’m not worst of the class, I belong to the higher level of moderately tagging along. In other words, I have a lot to improve on, but my colleagues and my manager have all faith in me. That’s good, but it nags somewhat at my mind while I’m not ambitious enough to actually do something about it except for following the slow path upward always a few steps behind the people at the top of the team.

Anyway, enough of me whining about my slow descent into insanity.

When I was a kid, about eight years old, I always wanted to be a teacher. Actually, I never wanted to be a teacher, I thought I did, because that was a profession I knew and gave me some direction at what I was learning for.

Later when I was about twelve/thirteen, I said I wanted to be a nurse. I remember one of my older cousins being impressed about my, apparently, strong conviction of what I wanted to do when I was grown up. Of course, I never really wanted to become a nurse. My first real step towards a professional life was in that direction, social didactic services. I very quickly found out I was not remotely interested in trying to help people on that level.

Throughout my whole life I wrote. Stupid, small little stories. Stupid, a bit longer little stories. I got some good grades on writing at school, but so did I for art lessons in which we had to make a study for a painting. A teacher once gave me an A+, because, he claimed, he couldn’t have done it better himself. I only once won something for my writing, I won for my drawing quite a bit. However, I don’t really see myself as a painter. I never even considered that profession. I did consider becoming a writer, but got discouraged.

I grew up in a house where you don’t even talk about becoming an artist. Now I come to think of it, we never even talked about art, except for popular music, and that was limited to me and my brother. Anything artsy fartsy was considered a social thing which you shouldn’t do as a profession. Even fleeting thoughts about it were quickly put down, usually by my mother. Art, in her opinion, doesn’t have any real value. I agree for most artists it’s hard to butter their sandwich, but calling art not very useful is a big mistake. I learnt, and my Dutch teacher laid the foundations for that belief, that stories and art can be very valuable. But I’m digressing again.

When I was younger being a musician always seemed very attractive to me. However, I quickly found out I was not talented enough. I for one can’t keep any rhythm. Another profession I’ve been wondering about it acting. Not to become an actor, I’m quite sure I don’t have the courage, nor the will to go through rejection after rejection (I also believe we have enough actors and actresses). What I’d like to find out if I’ve got the core skills to do it. With music I know I don’t, tried it out, failed. With acting, I never really tried anything, I never explored the different sides of acting, so I have no clue. Certainly something I would love to explore.

Reminds me, best advice for aspiring actors and actresses, and on which I’m actually following up: “If there’s anything else besides acting you could do, do that. If you can be discouraged to act, don’t go there.” Incidentally, that advice came from Brent. I’m not sure I’m more impressed by how good that advice seems to me, or that it was an actor giving it. Of course he also managed to give advice on that subject that does nothing for me: “Learn to type.” Yeah, these days, in any case, learn to type. So, never mind about that one.

To confuse you I will now start talking about marketing.

I followed a marketing course when I was studying. My last internship was in the marketing department of an organization. My mentor there was very eager to have me employed there. I remember him listing all the things he would teach me. A friend of mine is in marketing and I sometimes listen to whatever she’s been doing, though I haven’t heard from her for a long time. And with social media becoming more and more important in marketing, and big data and such, it sounds like another option.

Social media expert is another option I still have. At the organization I work for now, I have a colleague with whom I once planned to do presentations about social media and how to use it. It never came of it. I also went off the social media a bit. I always go off things that suddenly become very popular. Also a little flaw of me.

I am none of those things. I’m in IT, collecting information and writing specifications and I still don’t quite understand how I ended up here. I’ve never been very interested in technology, but I do like what you can do with it. I’m more interested in the inner workings of people, though psychology is not only complicated and hard, but also supplies you with templates I don’t want to work with. Neither can I be called very social.

All these things come forward in job tests. I did a few to find out what to do next. The results always say I should do something with technology and IT, and definitely not with people. I should do something in services, something were I can indepently work on something.

Wow, a lot of things I’m not.