When what you love to do, doesn't pay the bills, what are you to do?

Being a mom.

Writing.

I love both.

I need to do both, or I feel like I couldn't survive.

But neither pays me.

Not in dollars that can pay

the mortgage,

the insanely high electric bill,

the consistently increasing internet and cable bill,

the astronomical grocery bill,

for our unnecessary but desired meals out

for my ridiculous, excessive Starbucks habit,

for my kids' after-school activities, that now with the pandemic semi-winding down, we are considering making a return to.

What is an intelligent, bachelors-degree wielding woman to do

WHEN WHAT SHE LOVES TO DO DOESN'T PAY HER?

AND WHEN THE JOBS THAT PAY HER DON'T FULFILL HER?

Listen, I know this isn't a problem that only I encounter.

I'm almost positive that right now, 90 percent of the humans roaming this Earth feel unsatisfied with their career choice or, at minimum, feel

under-utilized,

underappreciated,

or underpaid.

That there's so many of us

knowledgeable,

well-rounded,

pretty freakin' typical, but also pretty freakin' incredible people

who basically feel that we have one choice with our one life and it's to either

1) find something we love to do and not make money

or

2) make a ton of (or just enough) money but lack the joy its creation should have incited because what we had to do to get it isn't what lights or fills us up.

I don't have an answer for this, folks, and I hate that. I like black and white and despise the gray.

BUT, I think there is something to be said for the personal growth process of

1) finding out how to merge the two,

2) figuring out a way to sustain both

or

3) accepting and contently coming to terms with the fact that maybe you have a here and now you've got a do, but also a later you will still absolutely do.