Deciding how you identify yourself is not only about your attitude, it’s also about your contribution. Are you a mother or mason, student or scientist, writer or wanderer, carpenter or caterer?

With out a purpose, a calling, a way to contribute to our society, some of us will feel lost.

I am fighting those feelings now. I am a mother and a nurse. This last year I home schooled the kids so I was also a teacher. But I have been off work so I have lost that aspect of what makes me, me. And now the kids are away at a summer program during the day so I am no longer a teacher. While I am using this time to hunt for jobs, sending resumes, making follow up calls, I find myself fending off those feelings of defeat that seem to come from not fulfilling my purpose.

Counseling with Choice Theory by William Glasser, M.D. suggests people suffering from what others may label a mental illness, is actually a choice. People choose to act out the symptoms that become identified as depression or OCD, etc. Although I initially scoffed at this idea – it seemed so insulting to all those people’s suffering – I am giving the book and Dr. Glasser’s idea of reality therapy a chance. Whether or not I buy into the concept, I am open to the idea that I decide to dwell on whatever is bringing me down, and I choose to feel tired, run down, listless. If I am not working as a nurse, something I feel called to do, I feel like I’m failing. So I am choosing to focus of working towards the goal of getting back to work.

I’ll be sure to review Counseling with Choice Theory once I’ve finished it.