I'm just a...

what?  You're JUST a what?  How often have you heard a career description begin with those words?  I'm just a secretary.  I'm just a mechanic.  I'm just a paraprofessional.  I'm just a housewife.  I'm just an astronaut.  Today was extremely eye opening for me.  As a former teacher, I am quick to jump on the "no one gives us the credit we deserve" bandwagon.  Economically speaking, being JUST a teacher was not lucrative.  I did however choose amazingly well as to where I did it.  South Dakota retirement system is thankfully extremely well managed and well directed.  But the overwhelming pay off is not measured in dollars, but in smiles, and careers, and successes (and failures that teach us things we really didn't know we needed to know) and the eyes of a child that comprehend something for the first time.   I could not have been luckier or happier in that choice.  I was never JUST a teacher.  But nobel as I think the profession is, it is no better or no worse than any other line of employent.  We do what we can.  For the secretaries who hold an office together while holding their "boss" together at the same time, I don't know how you do it!  For the mechanic who keeps my cars running, I don't know how you do it.  For the paraprofessionals who see to it that whatever line of work they have chosen is done with grace and proficiency, I don't know how you do it. For those of you who have chosen to make the home your work place, raise the children, fix the meals, and support your partners, I don't know how you do it.  And for your astronauts, I get it.  Just kidding!  Every day we go to work, we do what we can to see to it that our job is done to the best of our abilities.  We make the word a better place for those of us who choose not to do what others do for us. And we should wake up every morning with a word of thanks on our lips for the people who JUST make our lives possible.  Should I ever hear anyone start their job description with these words, I will hire someone to slap you silly.  Ah, yet another career that I couldn't do!  JUST a warming, and a great deal of gratitude and pride for the variety of skills you possess.  You are loved; I'm JUST saying...