“Mid Life Crisis” or “It’s About Time!”?

Did you feel that? Something just happened! To be honest it’s been happening for about three weeks now and I’m struggling to determine if it’s a mid life crisis setting in or if I’m just to the point where I’m hitting my stride and wanting more than the status quo.

Like many who live (or die a little each day) in the ‘Corporate World’ I have come to the frightening realization that I’m a ‘technician’ just like my father before me. As a teen I remember afternoons of golf with my dad, talking about my future and hearing him say “Get an education; don’t be a dummy like your old man, don’t end up working in a factory your whole life like I have.”

I recall thinking to myself at the time “what great advice”. It wasn’t that my dad didn’t earn a good living, or provide for his family, or have pride in his work…it was that after all these years of clocking in and out at the same workstation I sensed a lack of meaning in it all.

From my dad’s perspective it was ‘education’ that was going to set me free.

So I got my education: undergraduate degree in Marketing, worked for a few years, and then earned my MBA focusing in Human Resources. I was on the right course to career fulfillment and financial freedom…my course was different than anyone else’s in my family’s history.

The thing is that I bought into the myth. Education and the right job don't necessarily free you to pursue your dreams.

Here's where the mid life crisis question comes in...you see there is creativity inside me that I’ve pushed aside for a long time, and a desire for freedom that rears its head every couple of years but won’t go back down this time. Crisis yes, but its more like "its about time" the way I see it.

For the time being I’m clocking in at the same “factory” my old man once did, the only difference being I get to sit at a nice desk for 8 hours a day and don’t go home with the smell of grease remover on my hands every night.

I’m educating myself all over again, day and night, I'm using the creative side of me and engaging my brain, I'm educating myself alright and this time its on how to set myself free, go into business for myself and make that business (and my money) work for me, not the other way around.

Stay tuned, I'm just getting started.

Until next time…keep moving forward.

Graduation by Dianne Michelle at Flickr

Head in Hands by Boogle Eyes at Flickr