On Careers and Such

This post is inspired by something other than my own musings. About careers and the everlasting question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

I remember when I was a kid that was probably the question almost every adult I met asked me. And I never really knew the answer. When I was very young, maybe up to around 4th grade, my answer usually shifted between "cowboy" and "teacher". My favorite books at the time were about cowboys, and the only other profession I had any clue about was my Dad's (teaching).

So I went to college without a clue about what I wanted to do. I had a vague idea about entering some sort of music-related business. It might have been running a music store or recording studio, but there wasn't a concrete career idea there.

So I started out as a freshman with a tentatively declared Business Management major. In the meantime, I joined the band and took trombone lessons, started voice lessons, and took some freshman-level music theory and history classes. Oh yeah, I took some freshman-level business classes too.

By the end of my Freshman year, I noticed that
a. Business Classes were incredibly dull
b. I was spending almost all my time in the Music School
c. I was dating mostly music majors
d. I just got into University Singers
e. I was having a great time (in music)

So, voila, I became a music major. Actually, I still held onto the basic plan of entering some part of the music business, but at that time it seemed as far away as retirement does today.

Fast-forward to my senior year. I was finishing up a BS in Music Education, Area Music Major. That meant I was theoretically qualified to teach any music to K-12; band, choir, orchestra. But I did my student teaching and began to seriously question my choice. It really was pretty much clear to me by this point that being a music teacher wasn't a good fit for my personality, interests, or abilities. I found out that just because I enjoyed singing and performing, that did not mean I was intended to lead kids in those ventures.

As I finished my degree that Senior year, I seriously considered staying in school another year or so. Because I made a discovery that year - computers! I found out that they fascinated me, and I could spend an entire day writing programs in the computer lab and not even realize that I had been so wrapped up that I lost track of time, even to the point of skipping a meal. (If you know me, that's big.)

But I was already married. And tired of being a student. And tired of being broke. And ready for a change of scenery.

So, I found a teaching job and began what turned out to be one of the most stressful and painful years of my life. I was a square peg in a round hole. And the pay was so bad, we struggled more to eke out a minimum living standard that year than at any time while we were still in school. By Christmastime, I knew that this wasn't right for me. At the end of the school year, I packed up and left the high school, and never looked back.

I went back to school, selling real estate and working various part-time jobs, and in no time settled into a new career as a computer programmer. I loved it. And it actually paid a decent living wage.

But I wasn't a computer programmer all that long, if you take the view from up here at age 48. Management beckoned, and as time went on the distance from the computer programming start widened. Today I'd say it's been around 15 years since I wrote a significant amount of code. Sure, I'd do a little maintenance programming or write a simple interface now and then over the years just to keep my hand in, but generally my job in all those years has had little to do with that "computer programmer" tag.

Now that I'm self-employed and becoming aware that my most productive working years may be falling behind me, I find myself reassessing the whole issue of career. Once again, the pertinent question in my life is, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" To answer that, I'm now asking other questions, such as, "When am I grown up?", and "What does 'to be' refer to? Does it necessarily have to refer to what I do, or is it more important to focus on who I am?"

Take a poll of adults you know. How many of them are working today in the field they went to college to get into? You might be surprised. I'm not. Almost every member of my extended family is not. Many of my friends and acquaintenace are not.

Engineers have become company owners, entrepreneurs, high school math teachers, real estate salespersons. Teachers have become factory workers, bank tellers, psychologists, computer sales and repair people. History majors have become lawyers. Musicians have become salespersons, real estate investors, or ministers.

Life and change are fundamental. Every one of us is walking along a path that is full of alternatives and detours. Whenever the path arrives at a major intersection, we have to make a decision. Stay straight, turn right, turn left, go back? Those decisions are made more difficult by the fact that we really don't know what's ahead. We've heard rumors and hints, but no matter which way we choose, there is no way we can know for certain whether it will turn out to be the right choice.

So ultimately we just have to rely on our faith, family, and friends to give us insight, then choose our path. Whatever the path we choose, we must be prepared to discover whether it was right. Today I can look back and say that some of the paths I chose were not right, but they led me to where I am and showed me people and places and experiences I would never have known otherwise. So how can I really say any of my choices were wrong? They just were part of the journey.

What I will do is choose the path that looks right - not easy, not popular, not impossibly difficult. Just the one that looks like it's the right one for me. Whatever I find along that path I will simply deal with as it comes and keep moving forward.

Have faith.