<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/tie.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-336" title="tie" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/tie.jpg" alt="" width="415" height="420" /></a>
<h5 style="padding-left: 270px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/daquellamanera/">Daniel Lobo</a></h5>
I live in one of those towns where it's easy to joke with people about whether they have a "real job" (yes, we joke even in a recession, although I realize that's borderline problematic).

<strong>In a college town, a "real job" generally translates to any job that requires you to be in a particular place doing a particular task for 40-plus hours a week.</strong> The hundreds of professors here, in other words, don't have "real jobs." (Keep in mind, this is all said to one another in good humor, not judgment.)

As a freelance writer, I don't have a real job, either. I can do client work in yoga pants and a t-shirt all morning, then break to go to the gym, eat lunch, and shower, and finally put in another hour of work before stopping at 3 pm to walk my girls home from school and hang out with them.

<strong>Clearly, under this definition, not having a real job can be a very fine thing</strong>, as long as there's a way to put food on the table.
<h4>Are any lives affected if you mess up at work?</h4>
There are other ways of looking at it, beyond where you work, what you wear, and how many hours you put it. My friends Ellen and Gabriel took the "real job" definition to a new level when Ellen got her first job as a nurse midwife at our town's largest hospital. Not only does she fall under the 40-plus-hours-a-week category, but she has <em>real</em> responsibilities, delivering babies.

Gabriel, who teaches ethnomusicology at the university, with an emphasis on jazz (he wrote <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Monks-Music-Thelonious-History-Foundation/dp/0520252012/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1240411419&amp;sr=1-1">this book</a> about Thelonious Monk) put it this way: "If Ellen messes up at work, someone could <em>die</em>. If I mess up, the worst thing that could happen is someone could make a fool of themselves while chatting about jazz at a cocktail party."

Very funny, of course, but there's some truth to it. <strong>Some jobs really matter in people's lives and in the world, in very concrete, measurable ways; other jobs don't</strong>. (Hmm...a good example might be the branding and marketing work I throw myself into five days a week for my clients?)

Periodically, I go through phases when I feel guilty about the work I do. It's not like I'm writing cigarette ads—I market things like higher education and cool modernist furniture. But I am trying to convince people they need something. I'm not teaching kids at a school in the Dominican Republic, like my friend Emily, or making sure people who need it get free health care in my community, like my friend Jeff.
<h4>Some people make good news, others spread it</h4>
<strong>Sometimes, though, I get to <em>write</em> <em>about</em> people and things that matter—that make a difference in people's lives.</strong> I get to spread the news, and that feels good.

I recently interviewed Evelyn Busby, the executive director of the <a href="http://dhs.phila.gov/intranet/pgintrahome_pub.nsf/Content/Adoption+-+AIC">Achieving Independence Center</a> in Philadelphia, for a feature article I'm writing. Evelyn's center works with foster kids in their teens and early 20s.

Before interviewing Evelyn, I had never stopped to think about what happens to the 20,000-plus young people in our country who age out of the foster care system every year. Evelyn not only thinks about it nearly every moment of every day, <strong>she's constantly working to give them hope, and whatever they need to realize that hope.</strong>

Some of what they need, and the center offers, is practical. They need someone to teach them life skills, and to help with homework and job applications. They need someone to help them find a place to live on their own, and to show them that college is a real option.

But the aspects of Evelyn's work that move me the most focus on the emotional well-being of these kids, who have already experienced much disappointment, rejection and even trauma in their young lives. At the center, there is always someone available to listen. There's a sense of belonging and acceptance. The kids feel included and valued, so they learn trust and hope. <strong>They're learning they can't escape or change their past, but they can learn better ways to carry it into their future.</strong> Most of all, Evelyn says, they're <strong>learning to see themselves in a different light.</strong>

Now <em>those</em> are things that matter to me. I want to be clear—I think lots of things matter, in all sorts of jobs. You can do carpentry or deliver mail in a way that matters. <strong>For me, though, helping someone find hope and see themselves in a different light just happen to be things that I can get really excited about.</strong> They're also things I can easily do more of, in my day-to-day interactions with people as well as through community volunteer opportunities.

<strong>And when I think about those things that move me the most about Evelyn's work—nurturing that sense of belonging and acceptance, and a hope for moving forward—I can't help but think about the interactions on this blog and a few of the other blogs I read.</strong> It makes me grateful that I'm able to connect with people here, and use my writing in a way that can possibly nurture some of these same things for a different group of people.

Maybe I have a real job after all. Who cares if it's the part of my work that doesn't pay in dollars?