Career or Lifestyle?

George Payne
Aug 9, 2017 · 3 min read

I am, by title, an Instructional Designer for the New England College of Business in Boston, MA. Essentially, I’m tasked with providing technical and instructional support for the design and implementation of the college’s online education system.

(Brain is already taking off in so many directions with this post. bear with me)

I am, by nature, a lonely, eccentric, creative with a drive for social change. I grew up an only child; the first boy in 2 generations; a light-skinned black kid with parents born in two starkly different eras. They are/were self-proclaimed creatives, and for the first 10 years of my life they co-owned a graphic design company called S.U.D.S., AKA Signs and Unique Designs.

(Now that I think about it… wtf does the last S stand for? x___X)

What really and truly inspires me is the idea of the Species Being: The human in constant pursuit of what life can lead to beyond the social systems that require it to work to live. As far as I know species beings are extinct, but it’s likely that they return again in the future. For some, space travel is exciting, for others life is about making money. I’m inspired by the idea of not having to do anything to stay alive yet never being limited by what I can do. It’s a reality I don’t exist in, but nevertheless…

(Let’s circle back to the title of the post)

Career or lifestyle? That is the question. And it was the question one night I was hanging with some creative friends in California. We came to the conclusion that a career is a narrow thing that is defined primarily by titles. For example, a resume primarily reflects a series of job titles, organizations, and start and end dates. Sprinkle in some associations and publications and you have a near perfect reflection of a career. But a lifestyle is inclusive of a career. It’s who you are when you wake up, when you’re alone, when you commute. It’s who you are in your first conversation of the day despite coffee, who you are when you talk to someone you respect, when you talk to your mother, when you talk to someone you don’t like. It’s how you carry yourself through daily tasks, how you deal with struggle and adversity, how you celebrate the completion of a project, and how you carry yourself through transition. The lifestyle is the support structure of the career. So while we’re often prompted to talk about what we do for a living, it’s our lifestyle that determines how we talk about it.

(Let’s wrap this up)

I am, by title, an instructional designer, a thing I am very proud of. But it’s my lifestyle that compels me to write about it, and share it, and solicit feedback, and to wade through the meta-self-analysis of being a full time creative. And it’s the species being in me that pushes me to dig deeper into the field despite the irony of the career that keeps food on my table.

How do you think about it? Career or Lifestyle?

Miniaturized in Middlesex Fells
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