How do you decide what to do?

How do you decide what to do with your life? What goes into that decision? Did you even make that choice or was it made for you?

There was a great TV show on in the late 80's, I think it was, about dinosaurs. Remember the one? The father was a tree-pusher for the Wesayso Company, the mother was a stay at home dinosaur, they had two teenage dinos and a younger one whose tag line was, "I'm the baby--gotta love me!" It was kind of a combination of "All in the Family", "Father Knows Best", and "The Donna Reed Show". As always, the mother was the one who had it together and was the level headed one, while the father was clueless but kind, wanting the best for his family, befuddled thought he might be. The teens would spat, the baby would make some insolent comment and the mother would make it all better again.

So in one episode, it was time for the teenage male's right of passage. He was taken by his father to see the guy who decided what career the kid would have. The boy wanted to be a rock star, of course, but he was relegated to his father's line of work: tree pushing. He recoiled at the decision,but gave it a try, but it was evident that he was not cut out for that sort of work. He got into terrible trouble with the boss dino one day--and this was a boss who could actually eat you if you got out of line. He was allowed to quit, or got fired, I forget which, but he did survive.

In America, the theory is that you can do whatever you choose in terms of a career. Some people have that choice, others don't--could depend on your family financial situation, your family dynamics--all sorts of things could get in the way of an autonomous decision on your part. In any case, what your parents do might certainly impact your career path. The doctor parent forcing the children to go into medicine, the scientist parent steering the children into engineering, or the blue collar parent insisting that the children do better and go into business. These are possible scenarios.

In my family, my dad was a civil engineer who sold steel for Republic Steel, all through New York City, North Jersey and Connecticut. My mom stayed home with us for many years, but then went to work for an advertising agency and then a Christian book publisher as an editor. So what did their children do? My youngest brother was an artist, the next younger brother is the president of a publishing company in NYC, my sister is a nurse practitioner and my other sister is a French and math teacher. My father just shakes his head. Not a math mind among us, though the teacher is something of a math prodigy, but never used it in her career till the teaching gig came up.

So, how did you arrive where you are now in your career?