Evolving Passions and Careers

If you have a passion in your life,  then go for it!  You will know soon enough if that passion will take you anywhere that you hope to go.  But a lot of young and even 30 somethings  people really do not know what turns them on or which career route to follow.  But they need to know that our passions evolve with age and even change over our life spans.

So they get muddled and even paralysed with fear, trying to figure out all the pluses and minuses of each path.  It gets complicated of course because; not only do you not know if this or that will work out, you do not even know if you will like it at all.  Same holds true for those in post or semi retirement, who have no clue to what to do with all their free time.

In these cases of pick up sticks  approach, the only really good way is to go fishing and test the cosmic waters with what pleases you.   Once installed and living your chosen path, you will know fairly quick If you love it or not.  And the universe will give you multiple signals weather to stay or move on to something else!

I have had patients who went through law school, and established a practice only to find out it just wasn’t them.  Then there was the dentist who confessed to me he hated the thought of being a dentist the rest of his life. Both chose those careers thinking it was worth doing for making a good living.  Neither had any passion for their chosen professions early on in life.

Was all lost?  Absolutely not, they had the good fortune to at least find out what they did not want to do to continue making a living.   I think life needed to put them in the front line of those careers to see if it fit what they liked, or were hoping for.

Even if we initially have the good fortune to have a passion for something early on, we can change and evolve to adding another one to our lives.  I remember a psychiatrist friend who loved writing screen plays on the side.   An then there was a ENT physician who ended up in the wine business.

My former psychiatrist colleague use to sculpt drift wood found on the banks of local bayous and streams. Now semi retired, he still sculps but has expanded his art into paintings as well and gone professional with showings. He has started to get recognition for what he loved to do on the side.

A former American psychiatrist here in Paris, who I have  never had the pleasure in meeting  was always a gastronome, like me.  Now he is one of the best Paris restaurant critiques and writes a very informative blog.

My dear friend in Paris is a multi talented woman who had a passion for flying and became  a flight attendant, then flight instructor, progressing on to be a  registered flight nurse and lastly massage therapist!  She absolutely loved all four.   Now, she has a new passion of  custom designing dog clothes, harnesses and collars, embroidered and sewed with love!

Another friend in France always wanted to be a teacher and he followed his dream, but eventually became disillusioned with the inherent difficulty fo teaching in today’s schools.   He always had an interest in computer science, economics and developed a passion for trading.  Now he is successfully blogging about all these topics plus more and his writing has earned him journalistic assignments.

All these people were successful in their primary careers, but in life we evolve in tastes and develop new passions.  It is human nature to generally have hobbies or interests that you love spending time doing . That is very healthy because it gives us an outlet to play with our leisure passions without having to worry about financial remuneration!

All of us want to know where our balloon in life will take us, especially before investing our time and energy.  That may be very normal, but wanting to know every stop it will take us can hinder us even getting on the flight.   The main point I want to make is to just get on the balloon, and hope it will take off.   Eventually you will see where the flight will take you.  It is the journey that counts after all.