You’ve heard the phrase “Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life” — I’m here to call this quote’s bluff.

Like many of you, I have worked multiple jobs throughout my life, some with a W-2 and some without. I have been incredibly fortunate to have only one or two (short-lived) jobs along the way I can say I truly detested. Otherwise, I have thoroughly enjoyed and learned from just about every position I’ve held. But, I would argue there are still those days you have to will yourself up out of the warm, cozy bed and into the yard, the office, the school, the cubicle or newsroom to do what you need to do.

I love working — I always have. School was OK; I do enjoy learning and growing in that all-absorbent kind of way, but to me, work just feels right. I like knowing I’m contributing, putting something out into the world that is needed, that serves a real purpose, other than making me feel productive or nice about how I spent my day. And that’s why I don’t mind the thorns that come with the rose.

Real work is just that — work. It’s not meant to be sunshine and rainbows all the time. There are obstacles, people and processes that can tear you down, trip you up. But overcoming these challenges is what makes it all worth it, especially if you indeed have chosen to do something you love.

My earliest memories of work revolve around giving my mom foot rubs for a quarter, though I honestly can’t imagine they were any good. Next up was pulling weeds in the circle drive out in front of our house under the hot sun. I also recall dragging a five-pound bucket of sloshing water down our 1/16th-of-a-mile-long driveway (twice a day) to dump on a thirsty patch of black-eyed Susans — all for a buck or two.

By middle school and junior high, I was entrusted by neighbors and extended family with a few weekend babysitting jobs, supplemented by more tedious — albeit paid — tasks for my mom, like organizing our entire family’s history of photographs into albums. On summer weekends, I’d shove a push-mower around the yard, give the dogs baths, take lunch out to the fields during harvest and bag fallen walnuts for an in-town family friend who liked to feed them to his squirrels. (He gave me a $1 for a paper grocery sack full, not the best ROI.)

At 14, I went to work waiting tables at the local greasy spoon cafe, owned by a family in my hometown. I got to know just about everyone in the county over age 65 while serving coffee before the sun was up, and it challenged my teenage confidence when the entire high school football team came in for lunch after a practice. This job did wonders for my multi-tasking abilities and physical agility, believe it or not. I learned to speak clearly, write concisely, do math quickly in my head, and make any type of person feel welcome and comfortable. Throughout my four years working as a waitress, I saved tips for college tuition and made dear friends along the way.

In high school, I also filled in more of my free time in the summer months with hours working as a janitor for the local school district. I scraped gum off the undersides of desks, painted classrooms, vacuumed hallways, scrubbed lockers and did routine trash emptying in district offices.

I worked throughout college, too, as everything from a fisheries and wildlife department administrator to a carhop at the local Sonic Drive-in. My freshman year I’d declared my journalism major, but it took me a whole semester to work up the guts to walk into the school newspaper office and ask for a job. A copy editor named Scott kindly showed me the ropes, making sure I left with my first assignment — and a due date. By the time I’d graduated, I’d had the honor of working as a reporter, a columnist, a copy chief and in three different editing positions. I fell in love with newspapers and knew this was what I was meant to do.

Right before I graduated, the Great Recession hit, so I decided to take a couple years to work abroad, traveling to dozens of European and North African countries while teaching English classes and providing communications services for a youth-development nonprofit in Eastern Europe. I am forever grateful for such a whirlwind experience learning another language and culture, expanding my communication skills, seeing another side of the world and watching the history I’d only read about come to life.

Now, as your editor, I am thankful to get to come to work each day and help shape the stories that bring this community to life. There are challenges — circulation issues, disgruntled sources, missed deadlines — but the creative and interesting wins far outweigh any losses. I do get to do what I love, but I still consider it work, and for me, that makes it all the richer.

Hannah Blick has lived in the Pikes Peak region for six years and enjoys exploring the many neighborhood haunts and side streets of Teller County. Send your feedback and column ideas to hannah.blick@pikespeaknewspapers.com.

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