Embracing the Unexpected
Weâre a couple weeks into 2008, and Iâm making a different kind of resolution this year: to embrace the unexpected. Because life never goes quite the way we plan, does it?
Take your career path, for instance. A path is just thatâone of many roads you might take. Thereâs no telling whether youâll backtrack or walk the straightaway for miles. Because, unlike my street and countless others in NYC, a career path is not a one-way trajectory. You can go back and forth and in circles, too. Itâs messy, just like the rest of life. Even if you have an idea what you want, it can still end up looking a lot different than the way you initially pictured it.
I was an interpersonal communications major in college because I like people and I like words. Did I know where that would take me? Not at all. But itâs been an interesting journey.
My first job out of college was waitressing; I needed a way to pay the bills while I figured out where I was headed next. Turns out I was headed to a microenterprise development organization, then a ministry to mothers of preschoolers, then an alumni office of a college I didnât attend, then a law office, then a business forms company, and then I was out of work for a little while. Call it a breathing period.
In the midst of all this I applied to a graduate program in counseling, thinking therapy was where I was headed (as the practitionerânot the patient!). I wasnât accepted into the program, which was a bummer at the time. I didnât know which direction to go next.
But that closed path opened up a handful of new opportunities. I began writing for a small magazine, then editing, and it wasnât long before I knew that I had found my niche. I didnât wake up with the dread I had felt going to other jobs, and I was learning so many new skills.
Iâm still writing and editing today, six years later. Maybe I could have known where I was headed years ago, but itâs OK that I didnât know. Iâve had fun along the way. Like the Dixie Chicks, Iâve been taking the long way.
I donât know what 2008 will hold for my career and my life, but I do know that the journey will be full of surprises.
Which path will you take in 2008?
By Dawn Papandrea and courtesy of CollegeSurfing Insider.
