I want my two little girls to aspire to be more than God’s gift to yoga pants, but sometimes, I fear that yearning might get lost in the pretty-girl shuffle. Pretty counts in large amounts and it’s ironic that I work in a pursuit-of-pretty industry. I am part of the problem.
As I spoke with a pal the other day about her work in the insurance field and how the conduct of at least of one of their clients is uninsurable at best, I asked myself: If we each traced our professional affiliations back far enough, how far would we really have to go before we felt sick?
As a gal who could complicate the hell out of a ham sandwich, I wonder when a job is just a job, and when doing whatever it is that I do will become so loathsome that I feel compelled to punch out permanently?
Not just an obfuscator of ham sandwiches, I could also medal in rationalization. I can tell myself it’s totally okay to do something when it’s absolutely not okay. Often, I can get others on-board with my grand justifications. I’m gifted like that. On the flipside, I can also assume knock-down drag-out guilt for stuff that’s not mine to take on.
Are you starting to think I think too much? Ding, ding, ding.
Living in a world of nearly-naked Kardashians, parenting two impossibly adorable little girls and working in an industry that pushes pretty like an Rx, I often ponder the greater good and how I’m supposed to be a part of it…knowing all the while that there’s something about everything with which to find fault.
Try as I might hang on to those deal-breakers, which I thought for me would be: I won’t market guns (and yet I worked for a sporting goods company for a time), I won’t work for a certain political party (and yet I helped my good "R" friend run for, and win, the office of Township Tax Collector), I won’t work for a conservative, “family values” company, whose ideas about women and marriage and a host of other hot-button issues, piss me off (and yet I know that I’ve worked for at least one). It’s clear that I knowingly (and unknowingly) compromise my supposed beliefs all the time.
Wouldn’t it be grand to have this unwavering moral compass, to unequivocally know the right thing and just do it…always…no matter the costs real or imagined?
Maybe I’m falling into a comfortable rationalization when I say that it’s been my experience that life can be really, really complicated and most days the best I can do is not be an a*shole?
Perhaps the most important thing for me to do is keep looking at myself and my own faults and hypocrisies. I’m really the only person I can do anything about anyway.