Your Work Will Last Forever

If you do a good enough job

John P. Weiss
Personal Growth
Published in
7 min readAug 10, 2024

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Chief John P. Weiss with wife and son at a police department event

I wonder if Marilyn Monroe was wrong.

She once said, “A career is wonderful, but you can’t curl up with it on a cold night.”

Of course, I know what she meant. A career can’t possibly replace loved ones. The companionship and affection of your spouse curled up in bed together at the end of the day is a wonderful thing.

And yet, whenever I get together with retired, senior friends, we often discuss our past careers.

Sure, spouses and family come up here and there. But career exploits and stories about work get brought up more often. And usually, there’s a sparkle in my friends’ eyes as they reminisce about their past jobs.

If you think about it, for a good part of our lives, we spend nearly as much time with work colleagues as we do with our families.

Yes, there are exceptions—people who work from home, or who run a business with their spouse. But most people leave home and go to work somewhere.

That’s what I did for over 26 years.

I left home daily and drove a short distance to the police department. In the early years, I was a patrol officer and worked various shifts.

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John P. Weiss
Personal Growth

I write books, stories and essays about life, often illustrated with my photography and artwork. JohnPWeiss.com.