School, Work or a Career?

I am a full time student, enrolled in a professional school. After I'm done my four years of schooling, I'll go on to an 'apprenticeship,' where I'll start making a very small amount of money, until they're ready to put the stamp of approval on my head, and I can go out working on my own. At this point in my life, I am still learning things, coming home and doing projects and studying. And that will probably be an aspect of my life for the next 8 years or so.

I feel like I'm at the point of my life, though, where I want to start living, and stop studying. I feel like I want to have a job, and a life. I'm tired of coming home, and not being able to do the things that I want to do with my free time. Subsequently, this sentiment has lead to a shift in my mindset, from thinking of school as 'school,' to thinking of it as my 'job.' (Real deep, I know.) This is significant for me, though. An identity is not anyone's job, any more than it is their concentration in school. Sure, I enjoy school, and I (think that I) will enjoy my profession when it becomes a paying job. However, it does not define who I am.

I cannot being to explain the amount of freedom this shift in mindset has done for me. When someone asks me what I do now, or who I am, I can say that I am living, and I am doing a lot of things, and I am a lot of different things right now. I am not simply a student, or once I graduate I will not be simply a health care professional. I feel free to spend my time on activities other than studying.

And for once in my life, I feel like I am actually living, and I am doing things in my life that I enjoy.