.JPG)
My niece Katelin is studying to be a doctor. I am so proud of her. She has a big heart and is looking to make a difference in the world. I know her. She will.
My mother always wanted to me to be a doctor. “They make a lot of money.” She told me.
It sounded like a good idea. But there were two problems. First, I can’t stand the sight of blood. A paper cut is likely to give me the vapors. And second, I don’t like people.
Well, that’s only partially true. I do like people. I just don’t like to hear people complain - unless I am also complaining. I’m barely capable of solving my own problems. So playing the role of omnipotent healer didn’t have a lot of appeal for me.
When I was seventeen and making a decision on what to do with my life, what I really wanted to do was read maps. I always found them fascinating. North. South. East. West. They were so tidy and organized. And they could take you from reality to fantasy just by tracing your finger along a wiggly line that swerved across streams and into mountains.
What it would be like to follow Route 66 through the Arizona dessert? Would I chance upon a run-down diner where a waitress named Gert served crispy fried chicken, a cup of stout coffee and the best dang blue berry pie I ever tasted? Would I find a little Inn just outside of Kingsman where the owners, Steve and Ed, greeted visitors with a mouth full of teeth and a basket of oranges? Or maybe I could travel to this bare spot in Wyoming. Would I chance upon a sleepy little town where the smiling locals would invite me into their homes to share a roast for supper?
Unfortunately, reading maps is not actually an occupation, unless you count taxi driver. Making maps is. And that seemed much more mundane. So I decided to pass.
For a while, I considered whether it might be fun to be a flight attendant. Of course, at that time we called them stewardesses and they were all ladies. They wore form fitting blue uniforms and pill box hats. And they traveled to places like Guam and Trinidad and learned about foreign cultures.
My Aunt Shelly was a stewardess. She had been to Hawaii and France. It sounded very exciting.
But when I asked Aunt Shelly about it, she explained that stewardesses spent most of their time passing out peanuts and pillows to grumpy travelers. And though she had been to Hawaii, she was more acquainted with the Honolulu airport than with the beaches of Oahu. She also said that the pay wasn’t all that great and the hours were long, sometimes stretching over several days. The more she talked, the less exciting it sounded.
I eventually decided to be an engineer. The unglamorous kind that never comes near a train yard or caboose. I picked this occupation because 1) I had decent grades in math and 2) I had heard that engineers were paid well. At that time, I didn't really understand exactly what an engineer did. Good thing too, or I may never had gone in that direction.
Yadda, yadda, yadda. Four years later, there I was with a bachelors of science degree in engineering.
It turns out being an engineer wasn’t exactly my thing. The thought of debating the pythagorean theorem didn’t give me goose bumps. And I never got excited about how many decimals of Pii I could memorize and recite at parties.
Though I did enjoy learning about technology, I wasn’t particularly in love with my Texas Instruments Scientific calculator. Although I will admit to a brief courtship with my first IBM AT. Hey, it had a 6 MHz Intel 80286 microprocessor, a 1.2 MB 5-1/4 inch floppy disk drive and a 20 MB hard drive. It was super cool.
OK, I admit it, I am pretty much a geek. I just wasn't an engineering kind of geek.
Today, whenever I talk to a young person about choosing an occupation, I like to give them some simple advice. First, find your passion. Then, follow your passion. If you are doing what you love, you will never go wrong.
For me, my passion eventually led me to law school. I loved to read. I loved to write. And I loved to think. And I especially loved to argue, just ask my Dad. That was about 90% of what lawyers did, right? Plus, it was the occupation of our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. If its good enough for honest Abe, it had to be good enough for me.
A few friends tried to warn me about the legal profession. The hours were agonizingly long, they explained. Your clients would be insufferable, they warned. The profession was going to heck in a hand basket, they predicted. And even if you do put in the time and effort to earn a decent salary, it will be at the expense of losing touch with the people you love most. It was dog eat dog. Kill or be killed. A bloody mess.
To some extent, my friends were right. I’ve met some of the lawyers they were talking about. Soulless drones with no sense of joy who worked every holiday, including the day of their baby's baptism, to chase their particular brand of justice. And they alienated themselves from everyone they loved in the process. Where justice was not the goal, their primary motivation was to make a buck at the expense of all that was good and decent in this world. They were not a pretty lot.
But as it turns out, my well meaning friends were also wrong. There are a bunch of bright spots in the legal profession. You just have to commit to being one of them.
I didn’t end up mucking about in the same meatball business as the drones. I was fortunate and found my way to a super company with kind people and reasonable hours. My clients were pleasant. My salary was sufficient. And I didn’t have to give up the people or things I loved, or my values or ideals, in the process.
If you ask me today what I like best about my job, I will tell you this. First, I get to exercise my best asset - the blob of gray matter inside my head. Second, I have the fortune to work with a bunch of wonderful people who really care about doing the right thing. And finally, it does not involve the sight of blood.
I eventually decided to be an engineer. The unglamorous kind that never comes near a train yard or caboose. I picked this occupation because 1) I had decent grades in math and 2) I had heard that engineers were paid well. At that time, I didn't really understand exactly what an engineer did. Good thing too, or I may never had gone in that direction.
Yadda, yadda, yadda. Four years later, there I was with a bachelors of science degree in engineering.
It turns out being an engineer wasn’t exactly my thing. The thought of debating the pythagorean theorem didn’t give me goose bumps. And I never got excited about how many decimals of Pii I could memorize and recite at parties.
Though I did enjoy learning about technology, I wasn’t particularly in love with my Texas Instruments Scientific calculator. Although I will admit to a brief courtship with my first IBM AT. Hey, it had a 6 MHz Intel 80286 microprocessor, a 1.2 MB 5-1/4 inch floppy disk drive and a 20 MB hard drive. It was super cool.
OK, I admit it, I am pretty much a geek. I just wasn't an engineering kind of geek.
Today, whenever I talk to a young person about choosing an occupation, I like to give them some simple advice. First, find your passion. Then, follow your passion. If you are doing what you love, you will never go wrong.
For me, my passion eventually led me to law school. I loved to read. I loved to write. And I loved to think. And I especially loved to argue, just ask my Dad. That was about 90% of what lawyers did, right? Plus, it was the occupation of our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. If its good enough for honest Abe, it had to be good enough for me.
A few friends tried to warn me about the legal profession. The hours were agonizingly long, they explained. Your clients would be insufferable, they warned. The profession was going to heck in a hand basket, they predicted. And even if you do put in the time and effort to earn a decent salary, it will be at the expense of losing touch with the people you love most. It was dog eat dog. Kill or be killed. A bloody mess.
To some extent, my friends were right. I’ve met some of the lawyers they were talking about. Soulless drones with no sense of joy who worked every holiday, including the day of their baby's baptism, to chase their particular brand of justice. And they alienated themselves from everyone they loved in the process. Where justice was not the goal, their primary motivation was to make a buck at the expense of all that was good and decent in this world. They were not a pretty lot.
But as it turns out, my well meaning friends were also wrong. There are a bunch of bright spots in the legal profession. You just have to commit to being one of them.
I didn’t end up mucking about in the same meatball business as the drones. I was fortunate and found my way to a super company with kind people and reasonable hours. My clients were pleasant. My salary was sufficient. And I didn’t have to give up the people or things I loved, or my values or ideals, in the process.
If you ask me today what I like best about my job, I will tell you this. First, I get to exercise my best asset - the blob of gray matter inside my head. Second, I have the fortune to work with a bunch of wonderful people who really care about doing the right thing. And finally, it does not involve the sight of blood.
No comments:
Post a Comment