I hate the word "job". Okay, that's not fair. I think there's "better options" for us to use than the word job. Why? Because job has baggage attached to it. It could be good baggage or bad baggage, and that is likely determined by the emotions and beliefs we have attached to jobs in the past. We have the baggage of our own experience with working. We have the baggage of our friends' experiences with working. We have the baggage of our parents, and whatever their relationship was with work. An example? Someone who grew up with a mother or father as a successful entrepreneur will attach totally different meaning to jobs than someone who grew up with a parent who did manual labor for a living. So I want to move beyond jobs when talking about our work. Is it semantics? Sure. But our words are everything, and the ones we choose to use matters.
What is your craft?
Instead I like to view our daily tasks, the things that we apply ourselves to day in and day out, as our craft. A craft, by nature, has hard work, appreciation, and attention to detail attached to it. It goes beyond some mundane job that we go to just for a paycheck, and it takes on a personal narrative. It attaches ourselves, our beings, to the work, and this fundamentally changes how we approach it. Maybe you don't actually enjoy your day-to-day work. Maybe you're looking for something new. But that doesn't mean we aren't craftsmen and craftswomen in what we accomplish each day. We craft our attitudes. We craft our conversations with others. We craft our ability to stay positive. We craft our work ethic. We craft the purpose behind what we do. When we remove our craft from our daily tasks, it is minimized to a job. But none of us want a job. We want a craft and a purpose that we can apply ourselves to. It has nothing to do with whether or not we have a boss. It has nothing to do with whether we're filing papers or selling widgets. It has nothing to do with the to-do list in front of us.
It has everything to do with our approach to it. This is our craft. It's shaped by our own two hands. What is your craft?