Accounting is not what I am, it’s what I do.
And if I said the opposite about writing, that it is who I am, and not just what I do, that would also make sense, right?
Not that people can’t be called to accounting, more power to you, we just wouldn’t readily understand that. And writers could do it just for the money too, but that would be a weird career choice for someone only interested in money.
Here’s my problem. I can’t separate what I do from what I am. Maybe you’re different, but I doubt it. People become what they do. That’s why I think like an accountant.
It takes practice to train the mind to work in certain ways. What you put your attention to, grows. The wolf who survives is the one you feed.
I don’t want to be an accountant. I want to be creative, unique, authentic, honest, wise.
I wish I could go back and forth, but I can’t work all day with numbers, certainty, superficiality, normalcy, and then switch gears to the unorthodox, unconventional, and intuitive.
The only way I ever even think that I am happy as an accountant is when I can fool myself. If I keep reminding myself that I could be different, by writing, for example, that depresses me, and makes it hard to stay motivated to work.
This is why I want to finally say fuck it to accounting, and why I want to spend all the energy I can muster, whenever I can muster it, writing and reading.
I never wanted anything else.
So, I will retire as soon as I can, which isn’t as soon as it should be. Then the accountant will be put to death. And something else will work the warren, to emerge into a new day, reborn.
Admit it 
This dichotomy between what you are and what you do reminds me of something from my own life. I have been married for almost 40 years and I never took my husband’s name. My husband’s family finally got used to addressing greeting cards to us as “their son with their last name and his wife who has her own last name”. Fortunately, we live in a province where a woman retains her name anyway. All my official documentation has my own name on it, which suits me fine. I could be Mrs. Husband’s-name if I wanted to, but that would only be socially, not legally. However, several years ago we had some plumbing work done in the house and as the plumber was leaving, he called me Mrs. Husband’s-name. I corrected him, and he said, “But that’s who you are!” I replied, “That’s what am, not who I am.”
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Ha. I’m reminded of a story about a neighbor of mine who is a neuro scientist. Some guy was fixing the air conditioning or something in her office and kept calling her “sugar.” Finally she got a little fed up and said, “that’s DR. Sugar.”
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Yes, my daughter the astrophysicist has to remind people all the time that she’s not just another blonde bimbo. I also meant to note that I totally got the who and what reversed in my comment: “It’s what I am, not who I am.” Grrr!
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