First Class Reunion: Decisions
This last weekend I went to my class reunion for the first time. After spending 35 years with my own ideas and misconceptions about my high school graduating class, I found it actually helped to solve some questions I was dealing with from my past, and answer a question that has been bothering me in my present.
In high school I had a passion for only a few things...music, writing, and girls. Even though one person brought up my time working with her in Yearbook, and me remembering my time working in Journalism, my passion for writing hasn't diminished a whole lot, but it also hasn't reached the level where I need to write daily either.
My passion for music was significant. I wrote songs, sang, played multiple instruments, listened to my Walkman constantly, and went to concerts as often as I could while living in a small town in the middle of Illinois. While in my senior year, I had scholarships to several arts colleges for music which, after some serious soul searching, I declined. The odds of me making myself something other than a music teacher from those scholarships did not appeal to me at all. I turned my eyes toward the military just to "take 4 years to figure out what I want to do".
This decision was the the first of many good decisions in my life. By joining the Air Force, I gained a new passion: technology. That passion has gone through significant changes over time and as it changes, so do I. I have always enjoyed being in front of the latest and greatest in an effort to see how it will help humanity...and business. That idea of knowing that a specific technology (customized or developed) has provided me decades of insurance that I am in control of my situation.
This brings me to the present. Off and on over the past 20 years, straddling the fence between technical and management, I am often the subject manner expert in the topics which means I am having to stay knowledgeable and keep my skills fresh. This has hindered my ability to properly perform the management side. As my team has grown, so does my management responsibilities.
I always tell my kids, "It doesn't matter what you do for your job as long as you have a passion for it." So how did the class reunion help? My passions changed. By talking to my classmates, they reminded me of those days when my passion for music existed. Don't get me wrong, my love of music still exists, but that is not the same as that passion for it I had back then. The Air Force provided me a new passion replacing the old.
Today...I decided that management will replace the previous passion for technology. I know it will be a struggle to let go of the technology from all of those years. I know that it will be a bit scary moving through an area I am not completely familiar with at the mature age I have become. I know that the team I have built here have to adjust and/or may not adjust to the change.
So here we are: Technology moves to another love to join music and writing. As for the passion for girls: it moved to one woman...my wife.
In high school I had a passion for only a few things...music, writing, and girls. Even though one person brought up my time working with her in Yearbook, and me remembering my time working in Journalism, my passion for writing hasn't diminished a whole lot, but it also hasn't reached the level where I need to write daily either.
My passion for music was significant. I wrote songs, sang, played multiple instruments, listened to my Walkman constantly, and went to concerts as often as I could while living in a small town in the middle of Illinois. While in my senior year, I had scholarships to several arts colleges for music which, after some serious soul searching, I declined. The odds of me making myself something other than a music teacher from those scholarships did not appeal to me at all. I turned my eyes toward the military just to "take 4 years to figure out what I want to do".
This decision was the the first of many good decisions in my life. By joining the Air Force, I gained a new passion: technology. That passion has gone through significant changes over time and as it changes, so do I. I have always enjoyed being in front of the latest and greatest in an effort to see how it will help humanity...and business. That idea of knowing that a specific technology (customized or developed) has provided me decades of insurance that I am in control of my situation.
This brings me to the present. Off and on over the past 20 years, straddling the fence between technical and management, I am often the subject manner expert in the topics which means I am having to stay knowledgeable and keep my skills fresh. This has hindered my ability to properly perform the management side. As my team has grown, so does my management responsibilities.
I always tell my kids, "It doesn't matter what you do for your job as long as you have a passion for it." So how did the class reunion help? My passions changed. By talking to my classmates, they reminded me of those days when my passion for music existed. Don't get me wrong, my love of music still exists, but that is not the same as that passion for it I had back then. The Air Force provided me a new passion replacing the old.
Today...I decided that management will replace the previous passion for technology. I know it will be a struggle to let go of the technology from all of those years. I know that it will be a bit scary moving through an area I am not completely familiar with at the mature age I have become. I know that the team I have built here have to adjust and/or may not adjust to the change.
So here we are: Technology moves to another love to join music and writing. As for the passion for girls: it moved to one woman...my wife.
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