I caught up with a former colleague over dinner. At one point during our conversation, he asked me whether my outlook on life has changed because I’m older and wiser. Being stumped for an answer, I just replied that I'm more experienced about life.
You see, when I was younger, I thought that anything was possible if I just set my mind on it. Less than a year after graduating from college, I landed my dream job as a magazine editor that I thought would surely make me happy forever (or at least until I retired).
But after six years of tight deadlines and endless travel, I decided that I just wanted a reasonable commute between home and work. So, I became a technical writer in Silicon Valley: a total of 17 jobs that lasted anywhere from 6 months to 6 years along with the 7 layoffs that lasted 3 to 11 months.
Looking back, I admit not every choice I made during that time brought me to the place where I am today. Through the best of the boom times and the worst of the bust times, those choices did teach me two lessons:
- I'm not always going to get my way;
- Even if I do get my way. the outcome seldom meets my expectations.
Was it because self-reliance failed me? Self-reliance was good as far as it went, but it often did not go far enough.
So, perhaps older and wiser may just mean that when life hands me lemons I make lemonade.
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