Reflections: Define Yourself

It's hard to believe it, but I've been out of school for nine months now, working a full-time job and
finding out more about myself every day.

My day job is that of a veterinary technician/veterinary nurse with a focus in anesthesia. I'm one of the newest employees; the youngest, least experienced person in my department; and I just entered phase two of the three-part training program that will end with me answering emergency calls in the middle of the night and dropping 2000 pound horses by myself. I'm determined, hungry to learn, and stressed to the max.

At some point this week, it dawned on me that part of my stress is due to the fact that I am no longer quite the person who started nine months ago. I don't have any of the labels that meant so much to me before graduation.

"Honors Student" and "Good Test Taker" don't mean much here. It doesn't matter what my GPA was, what my test scores were, or even that I can tell you the life cycles of about 20 different parasites. I no longer study for hours into the evening on a regular basis. I don't eat, sleep, and breathe books for class.

That's not to say that my education was a waste or those skills that I developed aren't useful; I use them every single day--hourly, in fact. I still need to know the physiology of the heart, understand how the drugs I use work, and be able to identify anatomical structures for epidurals.

But what I saw myself as--a good student--isn't important here. Being a good student set me up to be a good vet tech, but it can't be my end-all be-all. My self esteem can't come from good grades on tests, or seeing my name on the dean's list.

And it's hard to find my definition of self in a workplace where feedback is hard to come by and where I'm trying to compare myself to techs who have been in the field for ten or twenty years and are amazing at what they do. I don't have a little box to tick to say that I'm doing a good job. Each day, I try to find how I can affirm that I'm good enough. That I'm living up to the definition of whatever I'm trying to define myself as.

And there's the catch, isn't it?

At the end of the day, those vocations we have will change. Student changes to employee. Son changes to Father. CEO changes to retiree.

We can't be the perfect <fill in blank here> in the limited time we have; even if we had unlimited time, we'd never be perfect. It's futile to try. Chasing these things, we'll never be satisfied. We'll always come up short. We'll always be yearning for something more if we seek fulfillment in these transient things in life.

Instead, we have something else we can define ourselves as; something that won't change. Because that definition comes from outside of us. It's placed on us by Someone else, who doesn't have an impossible to-do list of incredible things for us to do. That name is a Child of God.

Jesus died and rose for us, and, at the end of the day, that's all the definition we need for ourselves. It won't change whether we're single or married, whether we're the best at our jobs or the worst at our jobs. It won't change whether we're students or teachers.

Because we're His.

And one day, I hope that I'll more fully understand why that's enough for me.