Twists and Turns

Happy Monday! Yup, late again with my blog, but Sunday busyness got the better of me, oh well.It’s a rainy day here in the resort town of Cobourg and Cavan is in the city working on upgrading network infrastructure for a client.  For me, I get to blog, tidy the mess in the kitchen left from repackaging the meat and poultry we bought at Costco, and working on a homily for the Community Catholic Church of Canada cyber Sunday service.  With some real luck, I’ll fit in a bit of reading

So often I sit at the keyboard to blog with absolutely no idea of what to write.  This one of those days, where I just set fingertips on the keys and see what happens.  Aside from the cursing and swearing that happens with the constant use of the backspace key because my fingers don’t wish to play nice, I just let the words come.

Yesterday, I had the honor of spending some time with a palliative and his son. We had a great discussion about many topics and I got to hear about this family and some of their challenges.  One of the things we talked about was the twists and turns of life, particularly around careers.  This fellow started out in the trucking business and when he was finding that he was spending too much time away from home, he discovered a new career in financial advising.  An interesting contrast.

I learned at some point in my life that people, on average, have three careers in a lifetime.  That’s not three jobs, as I’m sure that most have way more than three jobs in a lifetime.  Imagine, three careers.  I use, as an example, my own father.  He started out in the forestry business, and like the palliative’s son, time in that kind of career keeps you away from home a lot. Dad switched to teaching and had a long teaching career.  After retirement, he wrote little applications for fun and eventually, discovered matting and framing. I suppose that wasn’t actually a career, it was more of a hobby, but it was a skill that he became very good at.

As to me, after working for the board of education and a doctor after I graduated high school, while taking the first year of the Certified General Accountants course, I decided that none of those were careers I was interested in.  I took Fortran programming in college and I was hooked, graduating with a diploma in Information Processing, I began a 34 year career in the Information Technology business. After I retired from that, I began courses that have so far led me to be a deacon and, in five weeks, a priest.  Quite a change from accounting and IT. So, now, my focus gets to be spending time with the elderly, including palliatives, where I hope that I make a bit of a difference.

Along the way, with my post-retirement career, I have spent time at the local Extendicare, where I met a deacon from St. Peter’s here in Cobourg, where I met this lovely lady from St. George’s in Gore’s Landing, where I seem to have found a Sunday home.  What a lovely church!

So, there are the career twists and turns in my life.  I always taught my kids to ‘do what they love, love what they do’ and I have found that for me, as well. It’s very important, because there are far too many people who hate getting out of bed in the morning because they find no satisfaction in their career. Sometimes, it takes a while to find that, but it is so very worth it, it is essential.

So, dear friends, if you are in a place in your life where you are not doing what you love, try to find it.  I know that it can be tough, when you have to make ends meet, to start anew, but sometimes being happy in your career trumps the money and usually, things work out.

Blessings to all!