What Is Your Response to ‘The Question’

When asked the common starter question, “What do you do?” I have always answered that I am a “fundraiser,” “Chief Operations Officer for a non-profit,” “run non-profits,” or “Development Officer.”  My natural instinct was to always answer the question by telling the person how I made my money. I have found that I am not different than most Americans. We define what we do by what career we choose or how we support our family.

In reality, we do a lot more than this. Now that I am in this transition period, I really hate this question because I do not have an answer to the question, “what do you do?” I have spent so much time focused on my career I have let go of things that once brought me joy. Since I have a broken ankle right now, I am not able to go to Town Lake and walk around my happy place and dream, nor am I able to do my “dance painting*” so I don’t have much of an answer right now. I would love to hear what you are doing to bring you joy.

*Dance panting is when I put a lot of liquid paint on big canvases, turn on music, and dance with the canvases.  Here is one of my pieces.