My One Job

When I was a little boy, around 6 or 7, my father told me I had only one job on this planet. This excited and relieved me because even at that age I had heard of people having to toil through 3 or 4 jobs at once. They had just enough time off to sleep for a few hours and barely make it to their next job. They never had a vacation. They slaved away until the day they died.
So I quickly asked, "What's my job, Pop?"
He looked at me with the piercing gaze and slightly wrinkled eyebrows that always told me he was serious before the words could come from his mouth.
He said, "Your one job is to make sure that if you're walking on that side of the street," he pointed to the opposite sidewalk, "that anyone standing on this side can point at you and say 'There goes a good person.'"
Why couldn't he just say "Become an engineer,"?
Originally Printed on 12/8/05
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J.J. Oblivian Los Angeles, CA I'm in a gang called California.

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