Delightful Work

As a career coach, I’m often coaching folks in transition. Perhaps they’ve been laid off or they’ve cashed out and taken early retirement. Some take sabbaticals or extended disability leave, to get a clearer perspective on their life’s work. So far so good.

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Born in 1950 and country grown outside of Pittsburgh where I naturally went deep. The space program was a big deal when I was 11 and 12 years old but I can clearly remember it not holding a lick of interest for me.

I was into digging and dirt. I built dams in farmer’s streams. My buddies and I built earthen forts and tried tunneling. One of the best stand-by-me adventures was following a gas line excavation for miles, all day long.

At 12 I took my first job on a farm and my love of gardening grew from there. I worked on the farm for 5 years and loved every bit of it but I especially loved digging up spuds and stacking the wooden crates high in cool, dimly lit storage rooms.

When I was 17 I took a job going deeper into the earth and worked with a backhoe operator installing sewer pipes. I loved carrying those 80 lb. terra cotta sections and jumping in and out of ditches. Can you see the developing theme? Can you see what my life was trying to tell me, even then?

At 19, on summer break from college, I worked as a United Mine Worker in a deep shaft coal mine.

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We ask this question to check for understanding. We can also gain insight by questioning ourselves. When grasping new knowledge, it’s useful to both discover what we are newly aware of and then to express that realization.

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Some are born with such a compelling drive that their true calling surfaces early and they pursue it their entire lives. For others, it may take decades of active pursuit.

We complicate the process way too much because of our fears. It can be far easier than we make it.

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