For years, I’ve been doing social networking for a company on a largely volunteer basis. Recently they asked for my resume and were quite miffed when I didn’t send it. The truth is, there is nothing in that potential resume that would help them in any way — it would not affect the work I do, would not change my results, would not even give them any bragging rights if they were trying to get funding since I’m basically self-educated and self-employed.
I’m not sure what they expected to find on that resume. I’ve never set myself up as an expert in online work and promotion. Although I know how to navigate the internet, how to create blogs and profiles on networking 
sites, even how to develop an online presence, I’m self-taught in this as with everything else in my life, and none of these skills show up anywhere in my work history.
Actually, I’ve never set myself up as an expert in anything. I am what you see. This, to me, is the beauty of the internet, especially blogging. If you are an expert in some facet of life or business, then it makes sense to splash your credentials across cyberspace, but if all you are trying to do — as I am — is to make sense of life, love, relationships, death, purpose, aging, then the only credentials you need are to live, think, write. Online, you are what you do. Your words are who you are. Whatever you are in offline life is immaterial. Failures don’t count. Clothes don’t make the man or woman. Possessions have no substance. Physical limitations disappear. A wall full of degrees doesn’t automatically make you better than the person with a high school education. If you act like an illiterate slob, then that’s who you are. If you act like a grande dame, then that, too, is who you are.
Nowhere else in the world does this sort of egalitarianism exist. I do understand that offline we need those various ways of categorizing people, though now that I think about it, they are just as unimportant offline as online. If you have a car that gets you where you need to go, does it matter what the car is or how much it costs? Outside of your job, does it matter to anyone but you what degrees you have? If your clothes keep you warm, if you enjoy wearing them, does it matter if they are brand names, off-rack, handmade, or thrift store castoffs? If other things in life are more important to you than your bank account, does it matter if you have much money or none at all?
I suppose the problem with the request for my resume is it reminded me that on paper I seem like a failure since so many of my business ventures didn’t work out, but I don’t believe in failure as something separate. It’s all part of life — the good and the bad, the financial successes and fiascos. And more to the point, where on a resume is there a place for life? I loved totally, grieved profoundly, affected many lives, laughed and cried, learned, and even in my deepest sorrow found that life was worth living. Now that’s a resume worth writing!
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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.
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