Now,I am not one for great regret, but the other day, waiting for a meeting to determine my future among the "not-a-living-wage" type jobs, I found a book on tackling the"Brick Wall" of a tight, hyper-competative job market.
This book starts, with all, to find a direction. You have to know what you want. It asks that we perform an exercise called the Seven Stories. The premise is simple: write down 20 to 25 enjoyable accomplishments. Look back into childhood, in young adulthood, hobbies and in jobs orcareers you have held.
I did my list on the back of the folded piece of paper I snagged; some expired advertisement for well-passed Employment Fairs. When I have a phone, or camera, or scanner, I can prove it. Imagine a scribbled note here:
Editors Note: Scribbly Note goes here. Use your imagination.Some items that were on the list were: Piggy Pirates, A relationship that helped me learn about relationships, myself, and people, My brief stint with chain mail, Several stories I wrote in college and my work in 400 University Drive and the Ubiquitous. A portrait of Ian Anderson that caused my father to not have a critical remark. Tutoring adults and children in several subjects and having them do well.
I want you to note something - something immediately apparent. Not a single accomplishment was related to IT, Technical Support, or call center work. I am reminded of 2001 when I had the option
to intern with an Art Instructor. Since I could not ratiocinate both work and the instruction with respect to time, I gave up on the internship, because you've got to work to eat.
The mistake has always been my inability to sacrifice a job for a career. I always chose the job: A small piddly, temporary thing over the work of a career: a long course. My head wa snever one for computers. I can work with computers, I understand their value, but I found them incredibly tedious to work with. Had I been able to find them even a bit interesting, perhaps I would have tried harder. But the work with them was about as interesting, and important to me, as one might feel working at Mcdonalds. And whilst working these jobs, I did not work on my talents/
When you have gifts, you must work in the direction to increase efficacy. If you have talent for something, it would be foolish to let it whither.
And I am not saying I am special (not in this post, anyway). I think we all have talents and I think most of us give up on using them. I want to say it's circumstances that lead us to this, but that's only half of it. Circumstances, internal and external can only become so obnoxious before your will is thwarted.
Mastering a skill boils down to desire overcoming obstacles. And success, and expertise, is simply displaying mastery in a skill. Your upbringing and genetics make it somewhat more easy to walk some paths than others. We call these talents.
When I was offered opportunities to master skills in my life, to test skills, I tended to withdraw. And this was my mistake. I was not prescient enough to realize the existential pain of regret would be far worse than the difficulty at the time.
I don't know if GenY has this problem. Do you? There seems a certainty among others that I never felt. Better parenting, better schools? Better information? The Internet has done wonders to help our self-esteem, and (destroy it).
All I can say, is, in wisdom borne from foolish mistakes plus years of making the same mistakes, is that if you have a passion, do make time to work on them. Work on them intensely, passionately, and consistently.
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