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Alison Piepmeier

My life is all about bringing down the patriarchy. I write books and articles about feminism, and I also teach and direct the Women's and Gender Studies Program at the College of Charleston....

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My favorite things

Alison Piepmeier

The other morning the guy I’m married to (who I sometimes still accidentally refer to as my boyfriend, even though we’ve been married for coming on nine years) was playing banjo, as he often does in the mornings.

“You know,” he said, “I wish I could just keep doing this all day instead of going to work.”

“ALL day?”

“Yeah.”

He’s a very good banjo player, so the prospect of him playing all day is not nearly as frightening as it would be if he were just your run of the mill player.  The banjo played only adequately can become quite grating.

 But anyway, he this got me thinking about what things I love doing so much that I’d like to do them all day:

• Reading.  I’m a lightweight compared to some of my friends who go through a book a day, but I do love to fall into a good book and stay there.  I just finished Harriet McBryde Johnson’s Too Late to Die Young, and I recommend it.  Now I’m working on a book about Riot Grrrl.
• Talking to people about ideas.  I might not be able to do this all, all day, but if a pretty good chunk of the day were given over to this, I wouldn’t complain.
• Writing.  Again, as with talking to people, I’m certain I couldn’t do this all day, but on days like yesterday where much of the day is given over to writing, I feel incredibly satisfied and mentally toned (and then mentally exhausted, but that’s good, too).
  

To tie this back to yesterday’s post, it turns out that the things I love to do are central parts of what I do for a living.  This is a great thing (and not entirely accidental).  I always tell my students that no amount of money will make up for not liking what you do for a living.  Loving your job--getting up in the morning excited about what’s ahead of you--is one of the greatest boosts you can give your quality of life.

Now, granted, there are some days that my job seems to consist of equal parts responding to emails and attending meetings--two of my non-favorite things--but on the whole, I find that I’m getting paid to do things I’d like to be doing all day anyway.