Politician: An Essential Career, and Fun, Too

Introduction
If you want to be a politician, you’ve got to be thick skinned. Everywhere people will be trying to rip you apart, and if you can’t handle it, you won’t go far. You need to be able to debate and you need charisma. To be a good politician you need much more than this, to be good you need ideas, intelligence, optimism, morals, determination, a whole host of attributes, but that is only to be a good politician: if you have charisma and can debate, you can fool people into thinking you have the qualities that make the good politician.

Job Function
I am very early in my career as a politician, perhaps one day you will all know my name, but as of now I am only the mayor of a Podunk (I don’t mention my name, for if the citizens knew I just called this town a Podunk, I don’t think they would be too happy). To get started in a political career is fairly easy, start by attending public meetings, maybe join the PTA if you’ve children, and make yourself known. Then apply to be on city councils (this process varies in every city, but is usually an easy thing to get done, especially in smaller, rural settings). From here you can go onto Mayoral races, and then into Gubernatorial races, so on and so forth, in whatever direction you want to take your career. Lifestyle
There is a lifestyle of a politician which you must conform to: if you drink a lot and frequent prostitutes, you are going to have to cut it out, or at least start doing it secretly. You must be a model citizen. This doesn’t mean you have to cut pleasure from your life, it just means that you must limit your pleasures and partake in them privately. There’s a plethora of prejudices, too, which may hinder you, for instance, if you are a homosexual you are going to experience a backlash because of it, and you should be aware of that fact. Being gay will not negate your ability to hold elected office, but it is going to be another hurdle in your path. Depending on where you are, ignorance is going to be an issue, from the most liberal to the most conservative areas, it is going to stand in your way: sexism, racism and so forth exist whether we want them to or not, and it is an issue you will have to face.

Additional Information
Politics is an extremely rewarding career that offers a sense of importance and grandeur that no other job I know of can produce. Even if you don’t consider it as a career for yourself, you should become an active participant in it anyway. Remember the importance of your local government and stay active within it.