Icebreaker of the Week: If You Could Take A Different Path
Friday August 1, 2008
Photo by Deb PetersonAlmost everyone has wished at some point that they had taken a different path in life. We get started in one direction, and before long, there's no turning back. Sometimes this isn't that big of a deal, but what a tragedy it is when a life so full of promise gets off track and derails. It can seem like there's no way to change direction. Wouldn't it be wonderful if simply stating the desire for a new path could inspire it to action? Can't hurt to try.
This week's icebreaker is on the serious side. If you could have taken a different path in life, what would you have chosen to do?
Share your favorite icebreakers, and your most-dreaded ones, in the forum.
Photo by Deb Peterson
Comments
My major was medical technology back in the early 80’s. In my third year I took Fortran programming. If I had taken that my first year I would have switched to computer science. My sister, a business major, has been a systems analyst almost since graduation and done very well. I enjoyed the lab, but there are much better opportunities and pay in computer science and programming.
I wish I would have finished my master’s degree. I know I could go back to school, but now there’s not that much point, since I am a stay-at-home caregiver, but it would have been nice to finish my education as I once planned.
I started out life as a teacher like my mom. Bored out of my skull, I moved from adult education to business and consulting. I have never looked back. In retrospect, I would have spent the time writing books.
I don’t have any regrets about the path I’ve chosen, editor/writer. That’s because whatever I write about next opens new worlds to me. Although I’ve entertained the fantasy of being a veterinarian, the reality of dealing with sick pets and neurotic owners isn’t quite as appealing.
I’d have pursued travel writing back in 1988, when I wrote a budget travel column for our base’s Navy family newsletter. I loved doing it then, but didn’t see a future in it.
Hey, guys! It’s never too late. I was a stay-at-home mom, then a student going back to get my degree and then a teacher for 20+ years. Now I’m sixty and I’m getting paid for writing for the first time. A writer is what I decided I wanted to be when I was about seven years old, but do I regret the years I spent doing other things? Not at all. I’ll never regret the years I stayed home with my kids. As for being a returning student, I would have stayed in college forever if the pay were better. And as a teacher I had so many wonderful students, many of whom I still stay in touch with. So–no regrets, and it’s never too late!
I would have loved more and talked less.
I would have worked more and slept less.
I would have saved more and spent less.
I am truly blessed in that I have friends who love and respect me. If I’d done the things I listed above I’d probably love and respect myself more. I know I’d have accomplished more, regardless of what carreer path I’d chosen.
What beautiful thoughts, Randall. Thanks for sharing.
Randall, thanks for sharing those thoughts. They probably apply to a whole lot of people.
I tend to agree with Susan Adcox, as far as career goes. I worked a variety of jobs over the past 50 years, including psych tech, bank executive, police/fire dispatcher, and real estate broker/manager. Of course, that experience has all come together as a writer, so I can’t say any of those years were wasted.
If I had it all to do over again, though, on the personal side, I’d have set more time aside for my husband and children and less on work outside the home.