Can I Get a "Do-Over"?

I saw A Christmas Carol in a local theater last year, and it got me thinking along a familiar theme, in the same way that writing our holiday family update letter always does. Never mind your mistakes, Mr. Scrooge...where in MY life is a “do-over” needed?

My husband and I are at the tail end of a big do-over, and that makes it time again to take stock. Over the past seven years we’ve both pulled off dramatic career transitions, including that fun-never-ends “paying your dues in a new profession” phase. The uphill climb is over now, and we are finally into the stage of reaping the benefits. High five.

We were corporate for-profit science people for the first chunk of our careers, and watched in horrified disbelief as corporate leaderships’ values and organizational cultures split farther and farther away from what we were about as human beings. The money and fringes were awesome. The chronic acid reflux of being out of sync with our own values was toxic. We were being pressed to change our values to better fit into our corporate cultures so we could remain employed. People kept trying to define success for us in their terms, and make us follow their path to whatever their particular definition of happiness. We said no. We were downsized. We decided enough was enough, surveyed the vast career prairie outside of our zones of comfort, and chose new careers where we could have more control, more opportunities and a lot more fun.

Remember “The Road Not Taken” - that Robert Frost poem you had to read in college? That was in the back of my mind the whole time, and very much guided my decision process. It has become a personal mantra. Here’s the last verse:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Our first experience with being downsized gave us a wonderful gift. It gave us a long chunk of unstructured time off. No one ever tells you that you should budget this kind of time off into your career plan. Now I believe it’s critical to have extended time like this away from the rat race once-in-a-while, especially as adults with tons of responsibilities and constantly overly-packed schedules. Your typical 1-2 week vacation is nice, but just doesn’t deliver. It has to be in terms of months…preferably in the 3-6 range. Long enough to hit the life re-set button a few times, yet not long enough to become creatively bored or stagnant.

It’s critical because those long periods of quiet time allow for genuinely honest reflection. Who am I? Is this who I want to be? Where have I been? Where am I now? How did I get here? What needs to change? How can I go about changing it?

It’s kind of like detox for the soul…a spiritual colon cleansing, if you will. Get rid of all the built up garbage that has been clouding your view. An oil change. Get a fresh start...minus any baggage that might have attached itself to your spiritual pipes along the way.

I started teaching science in the grades 6-12 arena four years ago, and I am really having fun doing it. Maybe this is where I will remain, or maybe something else that fits even better will reveal itself as I walk along this path. One thing is sure...I should have made this career change about five years before I did, because I feel like a Dilbert comic strip office drone brought back to life.

For the first half of this school year, I have been taking time off from my teaching to reflect, recharge, take care of a pile of family business and grow some creative projects. I'm ready to go back into my own classroom now, and because of my time off I feel I have so much more to offer my students.

It seems like everyone has a secret do-over wish of one kind or another. We all do the best we can in the moment, and then want to kick ourselves in the backside later.

Perhaps it’s about passive career choices made along the way that wound up shaping one into someone unrecognizable, and a need to reclaim the spirit. It could be about the loss of someone beloved or parenting choices that ended up causing more harm than good. Perhaps it was a choice to exclude someone as an easy way out, rather than do the relationship work and invite personal growth. Whatever it is, it's probably in the way.

Hey, Mr. Scrooge...thanks for helping with the oil change.


© 2009 Patricia Fletcher.