Cosmic, Curious, Connected

One of the reasons that many people feel so dislocated in adapting to new realities is that we just look back at our parents generation and they had one job or worked for one company for their whole working life. Then that shifted during our lifetime.

How many jobs have you had? I know that I have had many. Some I tried just out of pure curiosity. That cat characteristic keeps surfacing as part of my cat (Leo) personality. I got interested in tarot, reiki, past lives, dowsing and so much more just out of curiosity. And that took me in unexpected directions.

My career path has not been linear for the same reasons. Oh, yes, for periods of time it was linear, but overall, not.

I remember when Grandpa retired, that was just sort of the end stage. Just relaxing, nothing special to be done. No more goals to achieve. Just a state of rest and a very easy going pace until death.

Today, however, we look around and see people in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s taking up new challenges and starting new careers.

Part of what I think now is that after 40 years of farm or construction work they were just worn out. Those were the kinds of work my family did. Oh eventually they branched out into other things, but still it was many years of hard work whether they worked in factories, offices, as teachers or salesmen. And the women got worn out from having and raising 4,5 or a dozen kids. Back then, family planning meant figuring out where all the kids would sleep.

Today, lots of jobs consist of sitting in front of computers and using phones to do our work which not only doesn't wear us out in the same way, it also leaves the opportunity to get up and do something else physically.

In some ways, all these changes seem chaotic. I am working on creating a transition into my next full time career, and when I look back, it had absolutely nothing to do with the career I was involved in 20 or 30 years ago, although you could see it as a tangent branching out from what I was doing 10 or 15 years ago.

Focusing on what is next is plenty to do for now. I am not even extending my vision forward another 10 or 20 years. Curiosity and surprises have led me inexorably forward until now, and no doubt they still will, for as long as I live.