This is not where I thought I might find myself in life, and as I’ve developed more authentic friendships and had real conversations, others I know seem to feel the same. Regardless of whether or not they like their job, few people are in the career they first picked when asked “what do you want to be when you grow up,” with the possible exception of astronauts. Even those who said “Engineer” when they were seven had a completely different vision for what that actually means when put into practice. I have one friend who pursued something from the time she was small, graduated with a masters degree in it, and hated it. She homeschools her kids now and she loves it.
But we’re all here now, wherever that is. Maybe your life isn’t far off from the imaginary one you invented when you were playing House long ago or maybe it’s pretty much the opposite of what you expected. Far or near, the map says “You are HERE,” so that’s where your journey into the future starts.
Recently I was speaking with a distributor’s representative—about the most middle-man-business-situation imaginable—and we had a wonderful conversation as people. Sometimes someone can say something in just the right way at just the right time so you can hear it and make it fit in your present brain, and this one hit me. He said, “Wherever you are, you have the opportunity to connect with people in an authentic way,” and I realized just how many opportunities I have.
I had this fabulous conversation while talking to our assigned representative at one of our distributors, an arranged and artificial relationship by every measure that quickly became a real, authentic moment.
I am here, and while my main job duties are listed somewhere, my real job duty in this life is to find every possible chance to connect with someone in a real way, because we all need that desperately in today’s world. And I’m so, so lucky, because I get to talk to new people all the time, and I never know whose life I might be able to touch today.
After we’ve talked about all of that, if you want to talk about computer stuff I’m ok with that, too, but you–the person you–are more important. Let’s be friends first.