Sure! Here’s a 570-word piece for the title “The actual job I’m doing. (Tearing up my field of course)”:
The Actual Job I’m Doing. (Tearing Up My Field of Course)
Let me be honest about what I’m actually doing. It’s not what’s written on my resume. It’s not what I tell people at weddings or what I write in LinkedIn updates. The real job I’m doing—day in and day out—is tearing up my field. Not in the metaphorical “I’m killing it!” kind of way. I mean literally disrupting the norms, the comfort zones, and the well-worn paths that have shaped my profession for decades.
I wake up and tear things down—not recklessly, but deliberately. Carefully. Thoughtfully. Because the field I entered wasn’t built for someone like me. It wasn’t made for questions, dissent, or innovation. It was built to function, to repeat itself, to reward sameness and stability. But that’s not enough for me. I didn’t come here to play the part. I came here to ask: what if we started over? What if we made it better?
Every time I challenge a stale process, I tear up my field. Every time I say no to “the way it’s always been done,” I’m yanking out the roots of complacency. Some call it rebellious. I call it responsible.
When people look at me sideways in meetings because I propose an idea that “won’t scale,” or “isn’t how we do things,” that’s a signal I’m doing my real job. I’m not here to nod along. I’m here to push forward. And yes, that means I get messy. It means I build things that break and break things that were too proud to be rebuilt.
I’m not interested in polishing the surface of broken systems. I want to rip them apart, examine their pieces, and rebuild something with soul. That takes guts. It takes stamina. It takes being okay with being misunderstood. Because people don’t like it when you tear up the field they’ve spent years manicuring. Even if that field is a monoculture, brittle and drying up under the sun.
I’m not afraid of weeds. I’m not afraid of rough ground. I know how to dig. I know how to replant.
The actual job I’m doing requires vision—yes—but it also requires deep, daily maintenance. Emotional labor. Late nights. Small wins that don’t make it into the reports but keep me going. It means mentoring others who feel like outliers too, showing them it’s okay to question, to not fit in, to reimagine everything.
I used to think my job was to rise up in my field. But now I know my job is to make space. To shake the earth. To say, this path doesn’t work anymore—let’s carve a new one.
Some days I look around and wonder if anything I’m doing matters. But then I see it: the cracks in the pavement where something unexpected is sprouting. A new idea. A new way. And I know I’m not alone.
So no, the actual job I’m doing isn’t just what’s in my contract. It’s bigger than that. It’s louder. And messier. And real.
The actual job I’m doing?
Tearing up my field, of course.
And planting something wild in its place.
Let me know if you’d like this to lean more poetic, more literal, or tailored to a specific industry like tech, education, or the arts!
