Tag: career

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It is a long time ago now, but I remember this photograph well.

At the time this was taken, I was an avid photographer, to say the least. I took pictures of everything, and in return, people took many pictures of me, perhaps in revenge! I made photo albums, those horrid self stick pages, good grief! And I would add captions that proved to be, sometimes, unpopular.

The above, with that caption, set me up for mockery.

At the time I was stunned by the backlash, because I was in no way trying to be pretentious, at that age, I didn’t even know what that meant. I was just simply stating a fact. Sure, I had lots of creative interests that I wanted to pursue, but I was a writer first and foremost and I didn’t doubt myself at all. I never questioned it. It was an activity I did every single day. I wrote hundreds of stories. I thought everyone else knew who they were too and should just say so.

Yep. Pretty pretentious!

That was the day I started shrinking from who I am. Over time, my real self was nearly totally eroded by the well meaning and maybe not so well meaning direction of others. As a result, I was miserable most of my adult life. I never successfully integrated into any field of endeavour, failed at every employ and relationship I had, and was LOST.

If you can remember who you are, live it. It is not that it is never too late, but why spend any of your precious time and life trying to be something you are not. My adult life was just one big embarrassment because I was a jagged square peg trying to fit into round holes.

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Lost and Found

I recently heard a story about a man who was only 6 months away from becoming a surgeon, when he discovered his true calling, woodworking, and completely abandoned his studies.

I also knew a young woman who had many scholarships to study biochemistry, but gave it all up to pursue dance.

These people are very brave, and very lucky.

And now, very happy.

Once you embark on a career, especially as a professional, you can become locked in it, and escape is virtually impossible.

I envy these people their courage to follow their hearts.

I wish I had of. I could have been creating stuff instead of enduring decades of misery and drudgery.

Money is not what you should chase. It is yourself you should pursue.

Being locked into a life that is less than inspiring is a loss for everyone.

Pursue your dreams. F the money. F the naysayers. F the people who think they know what is best for you. F the people in charge of you. Live your life.

If you are lost, then I hope with all my heart, you find yourself soon.

Try lots of things, you never know what is just around the corner.

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On Hold

Bruce Lee said “Choose a path with heart.” Very wise.

I recently read a book by a well meaning person, on how to become a millionaire by the time you are 30 or so, and then pursue your dreams. This sounds feasible to a young mind when you are healthy and energetic. Oh, but how quickly life can snatch away your life and abilities. At any age.

I suppose if you don’t have a passion or an interest, then by all means, go for the money. Just do good with it however.

Though I don’t disagree that life is not so great when you lack money, I do disagree with putting your passions on hold, or watering them down until you are rich enough to do them full time.

For one thing, there is no guarantee in life that you will live long, be able or be rich, no matter what you do.

For another, one persons get rich methods don’t always work for others. There is no one solution that fits all. And luck always plays a role in what happens. Always.

You should pursue your dreams when you are young. This is when you are most physically and mentally able and hopefully have many years ahead of you to learn, grow, perfect your craft, and evolve into other new and exciting passions. It is so much easier to do this when you are young and fresh. It makes life an adventure and a whole lot more interesting.

Some careers cannot be put on hold. You cannot become a surgeon after you are 35, and you certainly can’t pursue that part time.

I would never ever tell someone to pursue a meaningless, boring, soul sucking career just to maybe be rich enough to quit it by middle age. UGH. Are you kidding me?

You cannot determine what you want to do with your life based on money alone. We are already in a crisis with passionless people who did just this and are now our non compassionate doctors, greedy seedy lawyers and the lot.

Imagine if everyone quit their jobs at 35 and just sat around. Is this even feasible?

Or if people only did careers that brought them the best bang for their tuition.

When people enjoy their jobs, they enjoy their life and make the world a happier place. Have you ever dealt with someone who hated their job – like a surly waitress, and unkind clerk, an uncaring receptionist, a non helpful manager?

I am not saying being rich is bad. Never. I would like to be rich! But I want to be doing something I love, something that is honest, true to me, so I am happy. When I am happy, automatically I benefit the world.

Don’t put your life on hold. Life can be way too short – or way too long – before you do what you want.

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Second Childhood

I laugh to say this –

“Technology had to catch up to me”

Especially since I was a hold out on landline telephones until this year.

Locked in me is my 5 year old creative self.  So many interests that, unfortunately, in the mindset of 1960’s middle class dumb were not valid careers.  At least, not for a woman.

Acceptable career choices were like frame selections for glasses – four.  Round, cat eye, aviator and engineer glasses (plastic top, wire bottom).  Secretary, Stewardess, Telephone Operator, Housewife.  Breaking outside of these boundaries were not for the faint of heart as any woman who did can now attest.

Creative endeavors were regarded as cottage industry crafts.  Lots of manual labor, little profit.  But I saw a world beyond craft sales.  I wanted to have my own column in a magazine and publish my stories in books.  Display my art on book covers and advertisements.  See my photo’s in journals and coffee table books.  Design clothes and merchandise.  Most of all, I wanted to make epic movies like Cecil B. DeMille, Sergio Leone and John Huston.  Not very likely to happen for a middle class suburbia girl.

Careers slightly outside of the norm lacked imagination.  Thus, because I excelled in math, my parents envisioned a career in accounting.  The only creativity I could find in that involved food – fudging the numbers and cooking the books.  I was bored to tears and quit.  My head was off into astronomy, physics and mechanics.  I had a love affair with cars.  Exploration of these pursuits were confined to books, museum visits, and much to my parents chagrin, tinkering with mechanical beings – including the car.

Womanhood arrived, dragging with it, office work, the killer of imagination.

Severely strangled, but not snuffed out, all my interests stayed with me through an emotional adulthood.  They surfaced occasionally, wrecked havoc with the boredom of office work, fought with me constantly to be expressed and whenever possible completely took over all my senses and caused me to quit viable jobs.  Left and right brain waged war.

Enter the digital age.  My knight in shining armor.

Publish?  Design?  Create?  Permission granted!  No panel of judges to determine if I am worthy.  Software and hardware abound!  Upon the discovery of this new world, I plunged in with a custom built computer, affording me ten years of epic film making.  Bless the internet – I publish books, design merchandise, I have my own Blog!

I don’t much care if no one ever sees my stuff.  I am a child once more.  That is enough.  My second childhood.