The Road Taken: Any regrets?

I was chatting with someone awhile ago who was having a Moment of Doubt about some past decisions re. schooling and such. They're in their 30s now, and feeling the pressure to only make The Right Decisions now. Like, if they take a course to help their career path along, it has to be the right course, cause there's no time or money for f***ing up. And this person was thinking about the past ten years, and how much they might have accomplished in the field they have NOW chosen, if they had chosen it back then.

I understand the feeling. I always knew I wanted to teach Cegep (Quebec college) for which you just need an MA, but at the end of my English BA I was no longer living at home, and I wasn't sure how to finance an MA right away (the concept of using student aid was foreign to me--I have huge fears of debt). And I was quite, quite brain-tired.

I was working full-time at a bookstore, and a few years later I was promoted to management. And every time I thought about going back to do my MA, it never felt Quite Right. I'm a strong believer in making sure big decisions feel RIGHT before I do them, so I continued on my path. But I eventually returned to school, this time in political science (rightness!), did a BA and MA, and graduated in 2008. All the while keeping my same job, part-time.

I have never regretted those decisions, but the reality is this: The big hiring window in the Cegep system happened 10 years ago, around the time I accepted my first management promotion. No job materialized at graduation time, so I took a management promotion again, which wasn't much fun (hence my finally leaving the company.)

It could be years, now, before I get a teaching job, if ever. ...Does THAT make me regret the choices I made ten years ago? It almost did.

But.

I am the woman I am today because of those last 10-15 years. Most of my best friends were made at that job. I gained tons of great skills there, most of them applicable to teaching. I amassed a gorgeous collection of books. And I would probably be teaching English Lit, as opposed to having spent 5 awesome years studying the Middle East, gender and sexuality in the Middle East, developing areas, development economics, and political science.

I'm currently reading a very interesting blog by a woman who did get hired as an English Cegep teacher ten years ago--I'm reading the entire thing, chronologically. Right now I'm in 2007, and at the time she was struggling with burnout, frustration at the system, the feeling of no longer being inspired and energized by students, and so forth. All the same feelings I had at my job last year. In fact, some of our experiences are so parallel it's spooky. (Okay I was never inspired by selling, but I mean, re. the aspects of the job that I had used to enjoy.)

If I had become a Cegep teacher ten years ago, would I be burned out on teaching, the way I burned out on retail management? Hard to say, but after ten years I would be struggling with Something. Some kind of tiredness, need for rejuvenation, need for inspiration, etc. Maybe I'd be tired of English and wishing I'd studied some other topic, and not even sure what that was.

And if my friend had gone into their now-chosen-métier ten years ago, they too might be disillusioned with it today, or dislike it in some way, or have fallen into the wrong arm of the industry, and be dreaming they were in Some Other Aspect of the business... such as the very aspect that my friend is presently in.

Regretting the road not taken is like thumbing through People magazine, sighing over the glamorous life that Alternate Universe You is living because of the sweet choices she made when she was 20. Meanwhile Alternate Universe You is thumbing through US magazine regretting all the dumb choices she made at 20, and wishing she was you.

If I get a teaching job in a few years, I'll be 40, which means I might not experience any job boredom/frustration/doubts til I'm 50 or 55. Or maybe I won't have quite that experience, because I'll be starting a career at a later stage of life, with 15 years of experience under my belt from another industry, with 40 years of self-knowledge, and teaching topics I took an interest in later in life. If it happens for me, it might turn out to be a richer experience than I would have had at 25 or 30. Just as I'm positive my friend's many years' of experience have created the perfect soil for their current endeavor.

Unless we can time travel, we really only have two choices: Think negative thoughts about the road not taken, or positive ones. So if I may take a page from Julie's book--I choose to be thankful to, and honor, the road I've chosen in life. I like positive feedback, so I figure my road does too, and she will appreciate the pat on the back, and respond in kind.

Am I being too positive? Are there some career roads that you really can't unregret?

Alanis Morissette says thank-you to the Universe

What book are you?

You're The Poisonwood Bible!

by Barbara Kingsolver

Deeply rooted in a religious background, you have since become both
isolated and schizophrenic. You were naively sure that your actions would help people,
but of course they were resistant to your message and ultimately disaster ensued. Since
you can see so many sides of the same issue, you are both wise beyond your years and
tied to worthless perspectives. If you were a type of waffle, it would be
Belgian.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Mabel discovers her inner New Age girl (turns out she's a Butterick pattern)

When witchyfriend Mae was over last week I was giving her le tour of le apartment, and when we reached my office corner I had to explain something to her.

First there was Le School
I graduated from my MA in 2008, the goal of which was to teach Cegep. (In Quebec you finish high school one year earlier, go to a sort of community college for two years called Cegep, and then only do three years to get your BA. Or you do a 3 year technical program.) I've been applying for jobs, but nothing yet.  <-- Mae knew all that already.

But when I graduated I'd just done both an MA and BA, so 5 years of political science reading, and I was tired of nonfiction books. (I already had an earlier BA in English Lit.) In the intervening years I've kept up with what's going on in the world, but in terms of thicky-books I dove back into fiction. I also write fiction, so that side of me was really starved. AND I worked in a book store, so it was part of my job.

Mae knew all that too.

Then there were Le Books
What I pointed out to her was the sorry state of my school book shelves, which house the kinds of materials I would want to eventually teach. Mind you, at Cegep you don't assign material at this level; but I would need to refer to these books to plan lessons, to review my own knowledge, and so forth.

I said to Mae: "I'm generally not a New Agey sort of gal, though I don't look down on these beliefs because I do, after all, believe in God. But overall the sciencee part of my brain tends to fight against most of it, and some elements--like extreme "law of attraction" I find downright distasteful.

"BUT. But. There is a teensy, tiny, wee mystical voice in my head... that says I will not get a teaching job until I clean up these book shelves."

And Mae just gave me a pitying look that said: Well, um, YES. But out loud she said gave it some sort of rational patina to make me feel better. I confess I don't remember what she said, because I already felt better just admitting it. I felt ready to embrace my inner mystic.

Then there was La Powder Puff
Later Mae--she of the scenty things--was showing me some special perfumes coming soon to her online store, and we found that my skin tended to turn perfumes to a powdery-flower smell, like something from my childhood.

So I figure she's this 1970s Butterick pattern that I'm pretty sure my mother made me a costume from  when I was a kid. I remember the gold rope belt.

Practical uses of La Butterick
So far my Butterick Mystic is doing a good job. Today I wanted to move one lamp, and ended up cleaning up the entire mess of cables that connects our TV, internet etc. to make it all cleaner and nice. Then learned in Julieland that Mercury is in retrograde which screws with communications and machines. (Her husband accidentally kicked off the surge protector while she was writing about it, and she lost her whole post.)

I'm not surprised BM was in tune on that one. Mercury in Retrograde reminds me of Swiss Girl, who first read the term in her Young Miss horoscope when we were 13, and thought it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard. She brings it up to this day and we're 37. So I have fond, friendship feelings about Mercury in Retrograde.

I'm ready for the new New Age me. :-)

___
PS - Remind me to tell you sometime about The Idiots Guide to Astrology. Most hilarious and accurate astrology book.