The Career Clinic Blog

Which kid in your elementary school got the most oohs and aahs during show and tell? The one who stood up and talked about his grandparents’ farm? Or the one who talked her grandpa into bringing a baby goat to class?

The best way to inspire you to find work you love, in my opinion, is with introductions to people who have. The poet Taylor Mali graced The Career Clinic with his wit Saturday, and if you watch this video you’ll see why I was so excited about that show. Taylor makes a living doing what he loves, and he makes a better case for it than almost anyone I know.

Judging from one-too-many overheard cell phone conversations, we’re burning up our lives on the mundane--when that time would be so much better spent…coloring.

Why not change the world, instead? Let someone inspire you to make a difference.

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Why does time seem to speed up as you get older?

I think it was a physics professor who told me it was just…math. A year when you’re five is twenty percent of your whole life. A year when you’re fifty is two percent. So it isn’t less time, it just feels that way by comparison.

Dr. Alex Lickerman, who blogs at Happiness in this World, comes at it from a different perspective. “For a five-year-old,” he says, “each day is filled with so many brand-new things, with so much learning about all those new things, that it seems like a long time.” Not so with the fifty-year-old. Not a lot of novelty there.

Have you ever had days, or weeks, or years, when you wonder if someone else could’ve plugged into your life and done it at least as well if not better? “We like to think we’re bringing something unique, something special, to the equation,” Alex says. But if we don’t?

What if the boredom to novelty ratio feels oppressively top-heavy?

Heck if I know. But I hope we can figure it out together--with help from people like Alex. The podcast of my most recent interview with him will be up in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime you can listen to an earlier conversation, “So you want to be a doctor…”

Enjoy!

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So I'm new in town, and my little Honda Prelude is crammed with everything I own--not a lot, but Preludes weren't very roomy back then. My condo's not ready, I'm staying with friends, and even if I had time to unload the car I wouldn't want to impose that much...stuff...on my hosts. I'm in way over my head at a new corporate job, working late every night, feeling hopelessly lost--in every way.

Supper this evening is a banana as I drive around, running more errands, getting lost a few more times. I finish the banana, but I don't want to leave the peel in the Honda because if I forget it under all these piles it'll start smelling bad--and I have enough to worry about.

In a burst of early twentysomething impetuousness I reassure myself the banana peel is biodegradable, eventually. I open the car door and gently place it on the ground at a stoplight. Then I proceed to my next stop.

I didn't know I was being followed by someone who saw my Minnesota license plates as an invitation to set me straight. He walks up to me before I'm out of the car and hands me the banana peel. "I don't know what you do back home in Minnesota," he scolds, "but in Kansas we throw our trash in trash cans."

I was so ashamed! I railed against people who litter in a speech I gave in sixth grade, for crying out loud. This was not me. It still makes me cringe, looking back, and is one reason I'm glad I'm not in Kansas anymore.

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Watch your life like it’s a silent movie, career consultant Michael Bryant suggests, and notice where you spend your time. Where you spend your time is what you value.

I value stories.

I can describe the dress I wore to my last guitar lesson, tell you what my parents said to each other over breakfast the morning I left for college, and remember not only our hotel room number but the name of the parking garage during our family’s big Minnesota Book Award weekend a few years ago.

I can hear Katie announce, in a booming--and I do mean booming--three-year-old voice that she bets “Dad would come with us to get groceries more often if we gave him a beer!” There was nothing to do but stand there, wilting, in the produce department as I tried to summon a snappy followup that never came.

I have an okay memory, but that’s not the reason I can call up what I just did. I just got in the habit of saving what mattered.

Career consultants suggest you do the same. Save your stories. The stress of lobbying for a job or a raise isn’t going to make it easier to remember the times you did a previous employer proud.

Celebrate yourself. It might come in handy someday!

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“This is a perfect time to panic!”

That line from Toy Story, I think, is the perfect way to describe a classic scene from I Love Lucy. I found it in, of all places, Seth Godin’s blog.

Have a great weekend!

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How do you know when you've had a little too much screen time? When you take a break from one screen, where you're working, and turn your attention to another screen to watch a movie. You take a break from that screen to get more snacks, and when you return to the video a menu item says, "Resume." Which you read as REH-zoo-may.

A report in The Onion says we spend ninety percent of our waking hours staring at glowing rectangles.

Such a shame, when--even in the coldest swirl on the U.S. weather map, where I live--it's as beautiful outdoors as any Ansel Adams photograph. What d'ya say? Do you have time to build a snowman?

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