It’s the first full day of spring, and it has dawned with much promise in these parts. In fact, the forecast is for temperatures in the 80s, which is a bit much, but I’ll take it. As for today’s classic A&J, we can’t seem to get away from the old days, as in those old days when there were a lot more “wage slaves” than there are today. I now have a nephew in college and a niece in high school. I sometimes think what I’d advise them about a future livelihood if they were to ask (They haven’t!). I never can think of anything. The best thing I can come up with is, “Learn a foreign language.” At least that way you’ll know you’ve learned something. Plus, it might have future practical application. One never knows!
105 responses to “Revelations”
How many times have I said to myself, “Boy if I’d known then what I know now, I’d have done things differently”. Or even, “I’d asked my parents for advice more often”. But the truth is that they had no more idea about what was coming than I did. Whatever advice you could give to your nephew/niece would be of dubious value anyhow. C’est la vie, the old folks say.
I would tell them to make sure they have a passion for their chosen profession even if it isn’t the most glamorous or high-paying field. They may be doing it for the rest of their lives and if they aren’t passionate about it they will be miserable. Even if they get their dream jobs, there will be aspects that aren’t going to be perfect so their passion will be needed to make the less fun parts tolerable.
That is a deep subject for the first full day of spring. I have learned to never regret anything. Even the poor decisions or the bad things in life (in some ways especially the bad things) have made me the person that I am today.
When I moved up to Michigan, I really wanted to go back home to Indiana. I had a job all lined up and the last interview did not go well. A few months later I met my wife and I ended up staying in Michigan for the last 37+ years. That “bad” luck kept me here to meet my wife.
Re decisions, one never really knows in advance what will be the long-term consequences of the ones you make. I am regularly amazed at the major effects seemingly minor decisions I made years ago are still having today. So ditto on the “no regrets”, Steve.
http://www.almanac.com/content/spring-equinox-2017-first-day-spring
Sorry Jimmy, Spring sprung on us on Monday.
Yes, spring began on Monday, but as Jimmy noted, today is the first “full” day of spring (in the US).
If one achieves a positive results even from a negative life event that is a worthwhile result.
I have had several passions, the floral industry was one, sales another. I love to teach and see others grow and improve as a result.
No, I don’t truly regret because all our past decisions create the person we are today. I would not be “me” had they not happened.
Spring has sprung,
The grass has riz,
I wonder where,
The flowers is.
A dozen homes down road from me burned last night, hundreds were mandatory evacuations including the fire chief, a friend of mine whose wife grooms and boards my dogs for years.
This weekend probable tornadoes predicted. That is spring in Oklahoma. Season starting early.
be safe, Jackie. I have a room if you and Dickens need it….
Geez, Jackie, a dozen homes burning at once sounds more like California during brush-fire season than Oklahoma. Not too close down the road, I hope.
Found coverage of OK fire on-line; covered a square mile in parts of two counties.
Fire turned from our direction and moved east toward town of Enterprise. I was east of it. The fires are wind flamed and often arson.
Oklahoma is a bad state for wild fires. We just had huge fires in Panhandle this month where whole towns were evacuated. They are chiefly fought by volunteers who often die.
Wild fires, that is why I don’t do bonfires at home, I am too close to the woods. Which is a partial answer to decisions and consequences. Yes I did learn a language in college, Spanish, but due to age and health have forgotten most of it, just enough to get by is left. There are some bad things in past I would eliminate, but mostly there are do overs.
Is your Spanish so bad that upon being asked by a rose rancher in Mexico if you were married that you thought he was asking if you were tired?
And your translator called you over to tell you that you’d agreed to fly on his helicopter to the ranch to look at his roses for a week?
I used to laugh at Peggy on King of the Hill because that was what my Spanish did for me, produce a sitcom plot.
I like JJ’s foreign language advice and the rationale for it. My advice would be to be prepared to be, and to enjoy being, a life-long learner.
When I talked to kids about how to find good library and on-line resources for their career reports, I often quoted a speaker I had heard in the mid-1980s. He said that, for children who were starting school that year, their first career would not exist by the time they retired and the careers they retired from had not yet been invented. That usually was a little too abstract for most of them but I got their attention when I gave them a personal example: I met my husband when he was 25 – the job he had then did not exist by the time he was 30. (He was the guy who developed that “film at 11” at one of our local TV stations. The videotape that replaced film has long since been made obsolete by digital media.)
I took two years of Spanish and a year of it at Purdue (the Professor looked like Charles Manson). I do pick up bits and pieces when I go to Mexico, but they speak too fast, usually.
I learned morse code when I was 10 when I got my Ham Radio license. I only had to learn 5 words per minute and my Dad gave me the test, so I kind of got a break. When my Dad finally got his Extra Class license, he had challenged my to get my General. At the age of 40, I had to learn 13 words per minute. I actually crammed it in one week of practice and was shocked when I passed! I’ve never used it again, but sometimes movies will come on with code beeping in the background and I can pick up a few letters.
Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson starred in the move “Lost in Translation”. Jackie and the rose rancher’s sitcom could have been called “Gained in Translation”.
My first major career, where I had All-Female Staff #1, actually no longer exists, but I saw that coming and changed to the one with All-Female Staff #2.
One datum doesn’t establish a trend, but perhaps two points do? 🙂
Lost in Translation may have been the worst movie that I ever saw. It was about 2 people with insomnia. Too bad they couldn’t watch their own movie!
No predictions ’til Apr., but a doz. bison. Peace,
https://www.nps.gov/features/yell/webcam/oldFaithfulStreaming.html
Strange but my first career still exists and has grown, as did my second, my third and even my fourth and fifth. Of course finding trained or capable people to perform them is probably more difficult than ever. College doesn’t do so.
In my defense I only had sit years of Spanish in junior and senior high and three years in college. Only three years of bilingual courses in junior high to meet the country’s requirement of classes being taught in their own language.
Sounds chauvinistic doesn’t it? Own language? Isn’t English good enough?
Ghost, two points can make a line; whatever that is worth or means I’ve nary a clue.
Sideburns, tomatoes are setting fruit.
Steve from Royal Oak, MI
I managed to pass 20 words per minute by the skin of my teeth many years ago. Now I use it almost exclusively.
WF9V
Ghost, what was that first career position? As it no longer exists, you are certainly no longer in it, so it should be safe to tell us.