In the Garden of Indecision: A Jobs Interlude

 

I was lost. It was the summer of 1982. I had been let go from my second teaching job. I did not know where to turn. I did not know what to do.

We had a home in Cartersville, Georgia. Greg, my first son, was almost a year old. Although our economic circumstances were not as dire as you might think (there was family money on my wife's side), I still needed to get out and do something. Long term, I would need to work at something secure and steady.

Teaching had closed its doors to me. Technically, I could still teach, but I found it impossible to explain why I had been let go in my first two teaching jobs. There was nothing immoral or criminal in anything I had done, but I'm insecure to begin with. Under the best of circumstances, I'm not good at job interviews - this just made it infinitely worse.

We had a small flower bed in front of our house. I took a day to do yard work, including de-weeding that flower bed.

My mind was awhirl, and the manual labor allowed me to think. What was I going to do? 

And while weeding that flower bed, I had an epiphany. An epiphany that changed my life.

In all the jobs I had, specifically those after graduating from college, I had some creative outlet and hoped to have more. Whether it was the carrier's newsletter at the newspaper, writing ads at the radio station, or creating games and curricula at the schools, I always wanted to do jobs where my creative skills could shine.

But it was not working out. I had to accept the hardest fact of my life.  

If I wanted to have a secure family life, I was never going to be able to earn it through my creative side. I had to give that up and do something more practical. I needed to do something that required some technical expertise. I would have to recreate myself to be in a position that utilized some set of skills that only a limited number of people possessed.

I surrendered. I gave up receiving any creative satisfaction from work. From now on, it would be all about a paycheck.

The next step would be to obtain more specialized skills. As I'll detail in a subsequent post, that led me to Berry College.

Yes. From that epiphany on, I only earned a living through regular work that involved virtually zero creativity. It led to a steady but unspectacular career in accounting.

I continued to do creative things as my off-work hobbies, especially community theatre. I'd get fits of writing, but I've never made more than partly covering expenses.

I'd love to tell you I have no regrets. To tell you I made my decision and never looked back. But that would be a lie.

It wore on me. It wore on me hard. It was very, very hard to stay the course. But I did.  

Next up: Berry College!

Please note, that the picture above is only symbolic of a garden.  I think it's from the botanical gardens in Athens, Georgia.,