This is an interesting place, this intersection of social work, chef school and writing. My career in social work can be tracked by the pages-long to-do lists that most of us keep. I suspect that there are now more social work days behind me than in front of me and I find my to-do list shifting. I know some of it is prompted by writing Urban Tidepool, and probably some is prompted by my pursuit of a pastry chef degree (just ten credits short). I think it may also be partly prompted by what I’ve read since I started writing and how it has stuck with me. My to-do list, which I couldn’t get through a day without a few years ago, is becoming a to-be list.
The question that comes along with that goes something like, “It isn’t so much about what I want to do on this planet, so what is it that I want to be for the remaining time that I’m here?” While there are still things on my bucket list such as feed an orphaned baby elephant, there is a definite pull away from what I want to produce to what I want to embody. It’s a tough list to put on paper. So far, I have managed to identity a few things that relate back to my career choices.
For my social work self, I want to be comfort.
For my pastry chef self, I want to be imagination.
For my Urban Tidepool self, I want to be peace.
When compared to my pages-long to-do list, this list looks simple, right? What jumps out at me, though, is that if I do those things…just those three things, I wonder if it will accomplish many of the same things I’ve worked toward on my social work to-do list but on a much bigger scale.
My to-be list has become MUCH more important over the last year than my to-do list!!! LOVE that you are making this shift!
GREAT blog entry!
Guessed that you might appreciate this post!