Thursday, May 8, 2008

If money were no object.

Do you remember in high school when you'd talk to your guidance counselor about what you want to do with your life? I don't. Because I never did. I didn't know there were such things as counselors in high school. Or, better said, I knew people were there to talk to, but I figured they were only for the troubled kids - ya know, the druggies, the teen pregnancies, the gothic kids, and the like.

That didn't matter so much, though, because from grades nine to twelve we were periodically given tests that supposedly told you what you were supposed to be when you "grew up." The questions were always a little bizarre. "Do you like working with your hands?" "Do you enjoy filing paperwork for hours?" "Have you ever seen a grown man naked?" Wait, what?

Looking back on these tests, I realize that I didn't take full advantage of their potential for guidance. Instead, I had figured out which answers led to which career and would fill out the test accordingly. If you agreed to questions about paperwork and leading people, you would almost certainly become a successful business executive, complete with hot sports car, and a nice corner office with a view. Likewise, questions asking about playing outside in the woods and making friends with woodland creatures would lead to a career as a "Forest Manager" complete with loneliness and loss of care for personal hygiene.

What ninth grade boy didn't want a hot sports car? We were a year from driving! And besides, playing in the forest (or at least in the fields behind our house) was part of our daily life anyway . Who would want that as a job!? HA!

Oh, the folly of youth...

Anyway, I'm happy with where I am in my career. I've been lucky to learn while working, which is something you can't beat, and I enjoy what I do.

I would be lying, though, if I said I wouldn't like to be playing in the forests all day.

-Barry

1 comment:

  1. It's so hard to know what you want to be when you grow up because it changes from when you were 16, even 20, and sometimes when you're 40! I wish I'd taken advantage of counselors in high school and in college. I think if I had I might have realized then what I wanted to do instead of years later when I'm in my mid 20s. Thankfully Peter realized, before he had gotten too far into school, that the whole corner office with a view was really not what he wanted and that playing in the woods on a daily basis was. I call him a hippie but he calls himself an environmentalist...the main difference being that he showers daily. lol

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