Name Name
Essay #4

Work Plays Into Your Future

	There is a difference between a job and a career.  To me, a job is something that you go to every day in order to get paid and sustain a normal and comfortable living.  A career is something that you went to college for with intents of graduating and earning a living that makes you happy.  It is the part of the American dream in which you can wake up each and every day, knowing that you are going to go to work and enjoy what it is that you are doing.  Yet, work is not only that job or career, it is a verb.  It’s what you are willing to do and how far you are willing to go to determine your future.  What are you willing to work for? 
        There are many different reasons as to why people go to college and dive into a career.  It could be about money, power, pride, or maybe enjoyment.  Some people are greedy and want it all.  They continue to work in order to earn more money and power.  Becoming President of the United States, for example, means that you are practically, if not definitely, the most powerful man or woman in the world.  That fact alone will drive politicians into wanting to uphold that office, no matter how stressful it may be.  Others go to work because of the pride that they have in themselves for being able to make it through college and landing a successful career.  And sometimes, people go to work out of the sheer enjoyment that comes along with it.  Take Warren Buffett for example.  He is the second richest man in the world and although he is 73 years old, he has no plans of retiring anytime soon because of the enjoyment that his career brings him.
        Finishing college and being a successful, proud, and happy career woman is such an important goal for myself.  Being in college now, it is very difficult to try and pick a direction, knowing that the path I choose will ultimately lead me into a field of study that I will most likely be involved with for the rest of my life.  I do not want to have just a normal job.  I want to love my job.  I do not want to just be an ordinary housewife.  I want to be an independent woman, with her own career, with her own paycheck.  And when I get that paycheck, I want to smile and know that I earned it. Although it is the year 2003 and women stand for a lot more than they did 60 years ago, it is still nice to see a woman earning enough to support herself and better yet, earning more than her husband.  I almost resent housewives for assuming the role in which they are expected to.  I applaud when people do the unexpected, when people choose to be different and rise above society’s expectations.  That is the kind of woman that I want to be.  That is what I am working for in college right now.  
        As for my family, when I look at my mother and stepfather, I see that they enjoy their careers.  Also, I know that they go to work for monetary purposes.  They want me to have a successful life and in wanting that, they earn their paychecks in order to help me get there.  They enjoy supporting me financially and I will try my hardest to make them proud and make them know that their contributions were not in vain.  I feel that I am obliged to reimburse them for their commitment to my future, and by going to college and getting a great job, I will be able to do that.  As for my father, he is not interested in the financial aspect of work.  He has always wanted to live by his own rules and soon enough, he will be.  He plans to take his life elsewhere.  He wants to take a year off from the real world and go hiking.  He does not really have much planned after that.  I think he wants to play it by ear.  Unlike my mother who went back to college in order to change her career into something that she really wanted to do, my father does not believe that having a career will make him happy.
        Outside of my family and myself, I am not positive what others value in work.  The best that I can assume is that all people want a future.  Some are willing to work for it; others are not that determined.  Some want it handed to them and some are smart enough to realize that you have to strive for your own desires.  Some stand by and watch as other people around them achieve all that they can and some are the ones achieving.  Only you alone can decide how much you are willing to make out of the word, work.  Someone can go the distance and work for the life they want, the life where they have the desirable career or they can settle for a life, which they like, but do not love.