Career Choices

Today has been one of those days where I think about what I want to do with my life. I feel like I’m at a crossroads and should make a decision but really don’t want to. It does make me evaluate my ‘dream jobs.’ Are they my dreams or someone else’s?

When I was a senior in high school, I shared a part-time job at a radio station with my best friend. I guess you could say we both worked there but really we shared one job. I think I worked maybe 5 hours a week but that didn’t matter. Even though the job was just filing paperwork mostly, it was exposure to a world I would grow to love.

When it was time to choose a major for college, I chose secondary education as I was inspired by some awesome teachers and wanted to follow in their footsteps. The problem was I had chosen chemistry/physics and as I dropped chemistry and wound up with a D in physics(passed only because of my lab grade), I found myself questioning if this was truly the right choice. I then remembered my shared part-time job and changed my major to Communication. Now as you can probably tell, I really hadn’t given much thought to how much money my career would make. Teachers certainly did not make a lot, and I could guess from my shared job that neither did those in broadcasting. Still it didn’t matter. After having a terrible first semester grade-wise, I was ready to be happy and pull up my grades.

After college I worked for five years in television – which I loved and was very much underpaid. One day we ran a story about a new-ish technical program (Computer Networking) at the local junior college. I was intrigued – intrigued so much that I enrolled and spent two years going through the program which continuing to work full-time. I do not recommend this unless you really don’t care about having a life outside of these two domains.

I graduated and got a job – disappointed that it was lateral move in pay but excited for the future. This new field was great but not the same as television. When I worked in television, everyone wanted to talk about it. TV was something in their home that they enjoyed so naturally they loved to hear about the behind-the-scenes of the local news.  My new career as a computer support analyst left most people pretty quiet. No one wanted to talk about computers. They seemed to hate the subject or didn’t understand it.  It’s sad as I really miss talking about my job to anyone who will listen.

Now I want a change. I grow tired of working with computers for eight hours a day and am ready for something new. My problem? How do I combine the true joy of television with the great pay of computers? Do I really need great pay if I am happy?

I do enjoy writing, and I think I could be a descent humor writer. There are also many other things I enjoy and could do for money. Now it’s time to really examine all options to see if this is what I want and what I’m willing to do to achieve it. Whatever I decide will take time and dedication. I have to be willing to put in the work to reap the reward.