So far my walk through my career/school should be called peripatetic. I studied engineering, worked crunching numbers at a bank, then went to business school, realized I am not the business owner type, and now, have joined a firm that calculates damages for their clients facing law suits. Usually big name, blue chip companies facing law suits.
So, so far I have clearly moved around a fair bit. When I first started as some one who crunched numbers for a living, I was terrified of the prospect of being restricted to just doing that and feared being viewed as some one whose skill set was restricted to excel spreadsheets and lines of code. So I moved around, trying to accumulate work experience that was broader beyond analytics. I realized after several average-to-terrible experiences and an economic crises that the closer one is to acquring a solid skill set of any kind, the higher their prospects of surviving in this strictly corporate environment where one isn't paid for enterprise of the world-changing kind - the kind that improves lives or extends the boundaries of knowledge. To me a solid skill set includes things like wood work, carpentry, culinary skills, medicene, engineering, nursing, writing or closer to home, statistical analysis.
I wonder though if I have been going through this peripatetic route for a completely different reason. Maybe I just haven't found what I have been looking for as a satisfying career. And I haven't had the courage (money to be precise) to pursue one that I think (even now) I might have a natural inclination for- like writing, or acting. Speaking of which, not that I have any reason to believe in astrology, a google search through history of people who were born on the same day as me revealed that at least 65% of them were actors. Acting isn't a hard skill.
Anyway, so speaking of hard skills, after seven years of what felt like lumbering through an odd maze of careers, at 32, I find myself in one that utilizes a lot of the analytical/programming skills which I was loathe to build upon many years ago. And here's hoping that I will be happier for making this decision. Yet, there is, and always has been a part of me that aches for the 'other', a part of me that remains curious to know what it would have been like if I indeed had become a journalist, or an actress.
Maybe I am among those who want to feel different aspects of the world, and don't want to miss out on one or the other. Much is said about the tedium, mundanity and lack of creativity of stiff corporate life. And I largely agree. Yet over the last so many years people have created a lot of well being for themselves and for the world around them by navigating the much maligned 'corporate life'. Maybe apart from those of us who have an over-arching passion that consumes their existence (saving whales, making robots, making cars, doing woodwork, writing, music, astronomy,culinary arts), there is another kind- the kind that likes more than one aspect of this world. After all, a look through history would tell you that several accomplished people were multi-faceted rather than mono-focal. Omar Khayyam (Poet and mathematician), Albert Einstein (Physiscist and musician) and more recently China Mieville (award-winning fiction, weird steam-punk writer but also a Phd in International affairs from Oxford). Thus goes my feeble spiel to convince myself that all is well.
The good thing about having a life long passion though is that it helps to whittle this enormous maze of phantasmagoria that we live in, to something more manageable. I ache to have and serve a passion, but I also wonder if those with a passion are ever curious to view the world beyond the monochrome that they have painted their life in.
It is what it is.
So, so far I have clearly moved around a fair bit. When I first started as some one who crunched numbers for a living, I was terrified of the prospect of being restricted to just doing that and feared being viewed as some one whose skill set was restricted to excel spreadsheets and lines of code. So I moved around, trying to accumulate work experience that was broader beyond analytics. I realized after several average-to-terrible experiences and an economic crises that the closer one is to acquring a solid skill set of any kind, the higher their prospects of surviving in this strictly corporate environment where one isn't paid for enterprise of the world-changing kind - the kind that improves lives or extends the boundaries of knowledge. To me a solid skill set includes things like wood work, carpentry, culinary skills, medicene, engineering, nursing, writing or closer to home, statistical analysis.
I wonder though if I have been going through this peripatetic route for a completely different reason. Maybe I just haven't found what I have been looking for as a satisfying career. And I haven't had the courage (money to be precise) to pursue one that I think (even now) I might have a natural inclination for- like writing, or acting. Speaking of which, not that I have any reason to believe in astrology, a google search through history of people who were born on the same day as me revealed that at least 65% of them were actors. Acting isn't a hard skill.
Anyway, so speaking of hard skills, after seven years of what felt like lumbering through an odd maze of careers, at 32, I find myself in one that utilizes a lot of the analytical/programming skills which I was loathe to build upon many years ago. And here's hoping that I will be happier for making this decision. Yet, there is, and always has been a part of me that aches for the 'other', a part of me that remains curious to know what it would have been like if I indeed had become a journalist, or an actress.
Maybe I am among those who want to feel different aspects of the world, and don't want to miss out on one or the other. Much is said about the tedium, mundanity and lack of creativity of stiff corporate life. And I largely agree. Yet over the last so many years people have created a lot of well being for themselves and for the world around them by navigating the much maligned 'corporate life'. Maybe apart from those of us who have an over-arching passion that consumes their existence (saving whales, making robots, making cars, doing woodwork, writing, music, astronomy,culinary arts), there is another kind- the kind that likes more than one aspect of this world. After all, a look through history would tell you that several accomplished people were multi-faceted rather than mono-focal. Omar Khayyam (Poet and mathematician), Albert Einstein (Physiscist and musician) and more recently China Mieville (award-winning fiction, weird steam-punk writer but also a Phd in International affairs from Oxford). Thus goes my feeble spiel to convince myself that all is well.
The good thing about having a life long passion though is that it helps to whittle this enormous maze of phantasmagoria that we live in, to something more manageable. I ache to have and serve a passion, but I also wonder if those with a passion are ever curious to view the world beyond the monochrome that they have painted their life in.
It is what it is.
