Can you feel it? It hangs in the air, like the stuffiness of a closed-up room on a hot, humid day. It’s the pressure to compel graduating high school seniors into a college degree plan, and to compel college graduates into their nicely defined job-boxes.
Having “crossed over,” not only being self-employed but committed to work that helps other people have creative careers and be self-employed, I’m aware of this force all around me. Parents and family and friends of family emanate anxiety when they hear a graduate is still undecided, not sure of the next step. A high school graduate may not go to college right away in the fall. There are quiet gasps and scandalous looks. A college graduate may spend time pursuing more interests to find the right path before choosing a career. What will this do to the balance of nature? Will the earth’s magnetic poles shift, or will our planet wobble in its orbit around the sun?
That collective force acts as if personal freedom and creative choice will bring ominous results. But today’s articles in USA Today sound much more ominous.
“Slow times mean pay cuts for many” tells us bonuses, commission, and tips are falling. “Fuel prices drive some to try four-day workweeks” tells us that some businesses and government agencies are taking the drastic step of cutting back to four-day weeks. Scandal! How do we dare change a work pattern that is several decades old?
Traveling on the Twisting Road takes me above those ruts, so far above that sometimes I forget they are there. From the Road, it looks like you can work on a project at a reasonable pace and finish it, choosing a schedule based on when you are most productive. Up here I see that sometimes work requires a lot of focused hours, and sometimes it’s fewer, less intense hours of follow-up and coordination.
On the Road I bring my laptop when I’m out of town to be able to write the articles for my newsletter and publish them. I don’t spend time working on ongoing writing projects while I’m away, but I still spend a little time to keep up with my publishing schedule. I was even able to attend my advanced coaching class by teleconference today.
With so many of us changing our career focus to do something creative and meaningful in the middle of our lives, isn’t it inevitable that young adults will be more inclined to spend time finding authentic work before they settle into a job-box? It seems likely, and it seems right. At the point of greatest freedom and fewest obligations to hold them back, they can take a little time to find their gifts, talents, and passions and design work that expresses them and honors their values.
We’re in Phoenix for my niece’s high school graduation. I gave her the collection of books I recommended in a recent article in Chasing Wisdom. We also included a gift card, which she found right away, but as she looked through the gift bag she excitedly withdrew Barbara Winter’s Making A Living Without A Job. She was very excited and exclaimed, “Look, Dad! He knew!” They then joked about how she doesn’t want to have to work, but I’m still hopeful that it’s a wish not to be trapped in a boring job-box more than a wish to be able to amble through life with plenty of money and no deeper purpose or focus.
Up here On The Twisting Road we occasionally see people stuck in ruts and reach down to help them up. But many have lived in the ruts so long they can’t imagine there is safety, or provision, or even oxygen outside the rut. If we spread the message to young adults, before they get too settled in their ruts, maybe they’ll hop on the Road and choose blazing trails over wearing ruts into the same old paths.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
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