Monday, January 30, 2006
How I Found My Purpose: Chapter 5
Note: This is turning into an epic. I hadn't realized that I have been concerned with this question for almost 20 years. Wow!
So I get to Canada, party party with my cousin, fall in love, get married, and then start trying to figure out what to do next. Having no clue how to look for a job in the Canadian market, I had assumed that there would be hundreds of employers just waiting for me to submit myself to their management training programs. In Britain, one generally gets a degree, then goes to work in totally unrelated fields. In North America they seem to have this tiresome requirement that your degree is at least tangentially applicable to the job you want.
Suffering from immigrant syndrome (I can't find a nice explanatory link, but it's basically culture shock plus identity crisis) I dropped off resumes at everywhere from the Geological Survey of Canada to MacDonald's. Friends helped out by offering me childcare work, but this was not what I wanted at all. Eventually my wonderful friend Lesley offered to lend me the cash to go to secretarial school.
The course pulled me out of a serious depression and got me a Canadian qualification. At this point I just needed a job, any job, to get me on my feet, and I found an assistant position at a small contracting firm. Not long after, I had a cancer scare. Luckily, it was caught early and treated completely successfully, but it was a big wake-up call.
I only get one life. One. The cancer made me realize that it was very precious to me, and got me thinking about the big questions. My personal life was getting really hairy, and seperation and divorce were in full swing. If I was going to live, I wanted to really live, without regretting that I never tried something or became someone I could be proud of. Anyone could be their office manager. No-one else could be 100% me. So I upped and quit, and decided to write for a living. I'd read a lot, and a lot of what I'd read had been very bad. I was sure I could do better. How hard could it be?!
Technorati tags: career cancer writing hubris
So I get to Canada, party party with my cousin, fall in love, get married, and then start trying to figure out what to do next. Having no clue how to look for a job in the Canadian market, I had assumed that there would be hundreds of employers just waiting for me to submit myself to their management training programs. In Britain, one generally gets a degree, then goes to work in totally unrelated fields. In North America they seem to have this tiresome requirement that your degree is at least tangentially applicable to the job you want.
Suffering from immigrant syndrome (I can't find a nice explanatory link, but it's basically culture shock plus identity crisis) I dropped off resumes at everywhere from the Geological Survey of Canada to MacDonald's. Friends helped out by offering me childcare work, but this was not what I wanted at all. Eventually my wonderful friend Lesley offered to lend me the cash to go to secretarial school.
The course pulled me out of a serious depression and got me a Canadian qualification. At this point I just needed a job, any job, to get me on my feet, and I found an assistant position at a small contracting firm. Not long after, I had a cancer scare. Luckily, it was caught early and treated completely successfully, but it was a big wake-up call.
I only get one life. One. The cancer made me realize that it was very precious to me, and got me thinking about the big questions. My personal life was getting really hairy, and seperation and divorce were in full swing. If I was going to live, I wanted to really live, without regretting that I never tried something or became someone I could be proud of. Anyone could be their office manager. No-one else could be 100% me. So I upped and quit, and decided to write for a living. I'd read a lot, and a lot of what I'd read had been very bad. I was sure I could do better. How hard could it be?!
Technorati tags: career cancer writing hubris
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"Note: This is turning into an epic. I hadn't realized that I have been concerned with this question for almost 20 years. Wow!"
:) it is fun and empowering to look back at the paths followed and wisdom gained
:) it is fun and empowering to look back at the paths followed and wisdom gained
It's a strange thing that most people has to experience an illness like canser or a near death experience before they realice that they only have one life.
We often hear this story about people doing the most remarkable things after having gotten the final diagnosis.
Why is this? Everyone knows that they are going to die, and that it's just a matter of when. Still we wander around - waiting - beliving in our imortality. A beliefe we of cours has to have in order to get up in the morning and get into our cars...
Still, we should all remember that we each day has to make choices and be responsible for this choices. There is no use in waiting or believing that something will come around unless we, ourselves, tace responisbility.
Thanks for this "epic." It's just what I neaded right now, since I'm in the process of chossing what to study for my next couple of years. 32 years old and still not sure what to choose, and afraid to burn any bidges. But, I'm finally comming out of the closet and aknoledging my abilities - which are to many...
(and, don't mind the grammar or spelling - English is not my language)
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We often hear this story about people doing the most remarkable things after having gotten the final diagnosis.
Why is this? Everyone knows that they are going to die, and that it's just a matter of when. Still we wander around - waiting - beliving in our imortality. A beliefe we of cours has to have in order to get up in the morning and get into our cars...
Still, we should all remember that we each day has to make choices and be responsible for this choices. There is no use in waiting or believing that something will come around unless we, ourselves, tace responisbility.
Thanks for this "epic." It's just what I neaded right now, since I'm in the process of chossing what to study for my next couple of years. 32 years old and still not sure what to choose, and afraid to burn any bidges. But, I'm finally comming out of the closet and aknoledging my abilities - which are to many...
(and, don't mind the grammar or spelling - English is not my language)
# posted by 
: 1:48 AM
: 1:48 AM << Home
