If you think you need to follow a prescribed career path, you've missed the train. The world no longer works like that.
As this blog shifts over to writing with intention about the opportunities for those of us in the second half of life, it is especially relevant that we give up fixed expectations. We need to go with what we have. We need to make opportunities out of every hand we've been dealt.
So, a parable from Tom Waits. Consider this when you are choosing options that don't fit molds that other people want to put you in...
Tom Waits:
My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. 'Why don't you have a straight job like everybody else?' they asked me the other day.
I told them this story:
"In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me... I'm straight, and I'm tall, and I'm handsome. Look at you... You're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you! And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said just cut the straight trees and leave the rest. So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing strong and stranger!"
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Today is the 13th anniversary of this Sustainable Work blog. Growing stronger and stranger. Thanks to all the great visitors over the years. I look forward to sharing many more with you all.
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