The decision to change careers is an extremely agonizing and important one to make. Make sure you are prepared for the new career. Have a plan to begin the career. Be certain that it will replace the deficiencies of your previous career. Will it be less redundant, provide recognition, provide increasing satisfaction, provide an adequate standard of living, provide opportunities for continued growth and give you the opportunity to make a difference?
Be you sure you are really responding to a need to change careers. D. Elton Trueblood, in THE LIFE WE PRIZE, wrote "Man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit." I frequently talk with people who have been focused for a decade or more on a career and are beginning to wonder if they should be changing career fields. Others speak of discontentment with marriages that have lasted for many years but do not seem to provide expected fulfillment. Other friends who are looked upon as having been highly successful in the pursuit of position and wealth meet their goals and find little satisfaction in their achievements. History is filled with high achievers who died broken in spirit.
I believe, as did Elton Trueblood, that the answer to the longing of our souls is too simple to immediately recognize. From the time in our lives that we begin to see ourselves as individuals who have the task of providing for ourselves, we feel an emptiness somewhere in the depths of our being that screams to be filled. We immediately set about to fill the void with anything that provides any of our perceived needs. We seek fun, wealth, fame, friendship, power, and anything that feels good. Most of us, however, never take the necessary time to look within ourselves and recognize who we are, what we are and what the undefined longing truly represents. Could your perceived need to change careers possibly have something to do with planting shade trees?
DAN ROBLING©1995