Underbelly

Earlier today I caught myself worrying about work, as if this week was the real beginning, and last week was a "take your kid to work" day or something. As I went over the lists and the agendas for this week I realized the tasks associated with being an intern are endless. I wondered as I worried about my input and progress, do I "work to live" or "live to work"?

It's a fine line I never crossed during my quarters at OSU. I always was working on my degrees to take my life a step further in the right direction. Simply, I lived to work. Now balancing school and my internship, I find myself sitting on that line and I have realized that it's actually an uneasy see-saw. Struggling with this dichotomy, I find myself making sacrifices, questioning priorities, and feeling extremely tired (mentally and physically). I thought I had been grown up. I thought getting an education and landing my dream job was the goal, now I see it differently. I want to work to live, but not in the vacation home in Florida way. 

People in my office battle everyday for tax payer rights, freedom of information, and better business, but still have themselves in mind (in the good way). They bring friendship to the office and produce as a team; at my internship, no man is an island, even if he tries. This concept ties into my understanding of education, which is that knowledge is a work in progress. Learning a concept, interpreting it in your own way, and returning the information with a fresh perspective is what makes up the black box of academics. The people who I work with take this mantra to the next level and share their thoughts on every subject. They try to improve  company ideas "in-house" before putting them out there for the rest of the world to soak up because they want to be a critical contribution.

They are not living to work. The do not placing their whole hearts into blog posts, testimonies, and research papers just to advance their name, they do it to make a change for others and themselves. They are the taxpayers they are working to help, they are the consumers of better business, and they are the people who want to know the truth. They work to live better lives and just happen to contribute to the public good by doing so. 

My new goal is to be hard working, not for resume purposes, but for real life purposes. While having a great job makes living easier, feeding the pool of thought and helping others (while helping myself) seems more rewarding in the end. Did I just grow up?

Melanie Joy Kaufman