The Job I Want Is Not a Job

Gathering, listening, sharing — the only work worth waking for.

If money did not matter, I would not spend my days chasing titles, padding résumés, or stacking years like bricks in a wall. I have done that long enough to know it does not buy peace.

What I would do instead comes down to three simple things.

I would gather.
I see a table—scarred wood, coffee rings, notebooks left open with ink still drying. Chairs pulled close, not in a boardroom but in a living room, a kitchen, a back porch. People showing up raw, without masks or polish. Circles of conversation where presence matters more than performance.

I would listen.
Not half-listen while scrolling, not nodding while waiting for my turn to talk. I mean listening until the room slows down. Letting silence stretch long enough for truth to surface. Asking the kind of questions that do not close a story but open it wider: What broke you open today? Where did you see grace sneak in?

I would share.
Not as an expert, not with answers tied up in neat bows, but with stains and scribbles still showing. Sketches from my desk, stories from my past, fragments of prayer from mornings I could not hold myself together. The scraps that prove I am human and, maybe, remind someone else that they are not alone.

Gathering. Listening. Sharing.
That is the work that would still pull me out of bed if the paycheck vanished. It is not a career. It is not a brand. It comes with no retirement plan and no applause. But it feels like the only work that lasts: the kind that trades hours for presence, moments for meaning, conversations for blessing.

I have led without planning to. I have faced cold truths about what slips away with age. And now I admit this: the job I want is not a job at all. It is a calling disguised as conversation, a life measured in moments, not money.

And you? If money no longer set the terms, what three things would you give yourself to? What table would you set?

Tags: identity, calling, work and meaning, presence, listening, storytelling, gathering, quiet practices, faith, living from the inside out, reflection, spirituality, community