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ABSTRACT
KEEPING A WORK JOURNAL can be useful in exploring one's thoughts and feelings about work challenges and work decisions. It can help bring about greater fulfillment in one's work life by facilitating self-renewal, change, the search for new meaning, and job satisfaction. Following is one example of a work journal which I kept in 1998. It touches on several issues of potential interest to midlife career librarians including the challenge of technology, returning to work at midlife after raising a family, further education, professional writing, and job exchange. The questions addressed are listed at the end of the article.
SAMPLE WORK JOURNAL, 1998
I.
When the alarm clock goes off in the morning and I realize that I have to get up and go to work, I wonder if I'm going to be able to make it. To some extent it is this way every morning, no matter what the day has in store for me. I do not think it is a measure of how much I like or dislike my job. I think it is just me and the process I go through waking up and giving birth to the day. As I struggle out of bed in the morning, I have doubt about my ability to shower, decide what I'm going to wear, make breakfast, remember to bring with me what I have decided I need to take, and get my act all together so that I am driving out of the driveway to get to work on time. Although I have gotten up and out millions of mornings, it never seems routine. It is always a hurdle. My confidence increases the closer I get to my goal of arriving at work on time.
I love my physical surroundings at work. The Nimitz Library is a beautiful building with large plate glass windows which look out on the Severn River and the Chesapeake Bay. My desk is by a window that overlooks the Severn River. I am incredibly lucky and whenever I see where some people work, I am freshly reminded how lucky I am. I love water and yearn for it whenever I am away from it for any length of time. Water makes me feel connected to...