A Lifetime of Careers
My thoughts and attitudes regarding careers have been highly influenced by John Glenn. I grew up as an Air Force brat. When I was born during my father's last year of medical school he made a career choice. He joined the Air Force, a hard choice at that time for someone graduating from an Ivy League school. The reality was that not only would they pay for his residency and internship; they would also feed his family. His choice landed him in Vietnam. It also gave him the opportunity to be one of the surgeon generals for the NASA Gemini project and to work with John Glenn. When I was six or seven years old I met the famous astronaut. I don't remember that occasion, but I do remember the second time I met up with him some forty plus years later. Mr. Glenn was the motivational speaker at a corporate function. His speech was essentially about what he has learned in his lifetime. One thing that he spoke of was to always be prepared for change. He pointed out that in today's world everyone should be prepared to change their career at least four times in their lifetime. He himself had done just that as a soldier, pilot, astronaut, corporate executive, US Senator, and finally the lecture circuit. Taking his advice to heart I left my corporate job. Since then I have had a few careers of my own, all of which have required some degree of retraining and rethinking the image of the workplace. At this point I count four careers and my current path of pursuing a paralegal certificate will likely result in yet another one. I look at it all as just more tools in my bag that I can pull out when I need them. So while I am not actively looking for a new career at the moment, I am preparing for change.
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