Don't Knock It Til You've Tried It  

Growing up, I wanted to be a teacher.

An astronaut.

A ballerina.

A doctor.

And a mommy.

Yes, all of the above, but not necessarily in that order. Actually, I thought I could do all those careers at once. In fact, I thought those were the only careers out there, other than being an accountant (that was my dad's profession, and I knew all it did was make him angry, so I wanted no part of it).

When I went to college, I was still very limited in my perceived career choices. Pretty much, I knew all the above options existed, plus law enforcement and tangentially, being a lawyer. I also knew there was something called "business", but that seemed so abstract (and honestly, 10 years out of high school, the jobs done by my "businessman" and "businesswoman" friends still seem rather mysterious). To this day, I'm not really sure how I ended up in journalism-- I think of it as a cataclysmic convergence of multiple events that led me to this career-- but I've never really sat easily in the news producer's chair. It's not that I'm not good at my job; on the contrary, I'm rather well-respected for the job I do, both by the community in which I live and the co-workers with whom I share the office. But I've always known it wasn't the perfect fit: that there was something better out there for me.

That's why it always surprises me the careers my friends find themselves in. While I was so short-sighted in my career choices-- maybe too conventional, too boxed-in-- some of my friends have thought completely out of the box, pursuing fields I didn't even know existed. One college friend ended up in political PR, organizing campaigns for political candidates and issues. Another friend eschewed traditional college completely in favor of attending one of the many medical assistant schools out there. Up until that point, I had never even known there was a specific medical assistant job description and curriculum to do that job. In fact, I didn't know a lot about the wide range of employment opportunities out there... and in many ways, I still don't.

I've hinted to you on this blog over the past several weeks that big changes are coming in my life; they are in the works, even as we speak. I'm not ready just yet to tell you where they will lead. Part of that is because, at least right now, even I don't know. But when the time is right, I look forward to sharing those new beginnings with you-- this time, with my eyes wide open.