What If You Took Another Path In Life…
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I saw this editorial at Lockergnome and it struck a chord with me. What if you took another path in life? is a great question to ask yourself. Not to elicit regrets or think about what might have been. Not to question your choices in life. I'm a firm believer in dealing with your future and what you can do from now on. Complaining or dwelling on the past doesn't help, especially in business. You can definitely learn from it, but what's done is done and you should move forward with what you can control.
That being said, we all meander through life, some of us with a better guiding compass than others. And even with the best of intentions or goals to drive you, it's easy to get off course from the destination that you set for yourself.
Life gets in the way. Work, family, kids, sports, hobbies, yard work, etc. all distract us from one thing or another. And while you may focus on one goal, you might be neglecting others in your life.
You career is one area that you should stop and think about from time to time. And those times should be less than a year. Examining whether the position or place you are in is still in your goals is a great way to ensure that you are happy in your job. Or that you are doing something to get happy with employment, even if that means looking for another job.
If you're anything like me, while you may really enjoy or love computers, you probably stumbled into DBA work. I don't know any DBA that thought about working with databases as a kid. Or even as a college student. I know I wanted to program and work with computers, but being a DBA is something I stumbled upon while doing network administration.
That was 14 years ago and since that job I've held 7 other jobs. And more and more as I've changed jobs, I become more picky and reexamine what it is that I really want to do. I look back at things I've enjoyed, things I used to enjoy but don't have time for, and things that I've wondered about. My job searches usually start with a wide variety of jobs as I consider different positions and companies and then narrow down. I've tended to stick with SQL Server in some sense because I enjoy it. I deviated into management a few times, usually regretting the move, but I made that decision since I wanted to be a CIO when I was younger.
Now I know better.
So stop and think about the paths that you've had a chance to take or that you almost took. Think about the paths that you wanted early in life or your career. Don't have any regrets, but see if the place you are in now is the place that you want to be.
And make sure that you move towards that place.
Steve Jones
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I'm probably considerably older than you, but the one thing I can say about my life is that it was not planned out. I still do not have *a* goal beyond doing the best I can at what I am currently doing and keeping eyes open for new opportunites for experience. Often the most interesting opportunities are the result of confluence of circumstances, one can choose to grab or not grab those fleeting moments as they pass by.
One should fly off willy nilly, but the best experiences are often the ones you could never have planned.
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-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
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Jay,
I agree with that and hopefully things are wonderul with you. I've learned to trust my instincts, and I always regret when I don't. So if I feel something is a good opportunity, it probably is. Be ready for those and grab ahold of them.
I also counsel using that in a few other places. Always have an open req if you hire developers. The right one might come along anytime and you should be ready to hire him/her.
Also, the best time to buy a car, especially a used one, is when you don't need to. If you think you may want one, be looking early and grab one when you can.
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Steve - once again some very thought-provoking "musings" from your desk...
When I sit down to think about "path", the thread that often takes hold is "career choice" - what I've chosen to do with my life - whether I'll ever make any meaningful contributions to the world at large and/or to immediate family/friends in particular!
Whether I'll ever leave a "mark" when I pass on...the more I think about it the more I feel that it is the teachers and professors who are (the unsung) heroes - they instill in us a love for learning and knowledge; shape our minds and thereby futures & oftentimes pass on to us their burning passion for a subject inspite of (sometimes) indifferent and uninterested ears!
The medium of communication fascinates me with its' power of REACH and in the hands of a good and knowledgeable teacher becomes a very powerful tool. Guess what's really important at the "very end" is if we have few regrets and are content with the way we have led our lives and passed on Life's lessons to those who matter to us the most...
ps: With all that said, I still enjoy the comforts that a DBA salary buys...but if I'm ever laid off there's not going to be much agonising over where I should be headed next...
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
I often wonder where I would be. I have a BS and 3/4 of a MS in Forest Management. I was having troubles with my major professor during my MS, and I took a part time job doing data entry, she did not like this and things got worse so I quit. 11 yrs later, here I am. I went into forestry because my father was a computer geek, he taught me BASIC at 9 but I wanted to avoid being behind a computer all day long. Funny thing is, in Foresty I was making databases, writing FORTRAN and doing a lot a data analysis. So by trying to avoid my fate I walked right into it.
I to did not plan on being a DBA, and most of my job opportunities have been offered, with very little work on my part. I feel as though my life is on autopilot and I'm just here to make minor corrections in direction.
I do wonder where I would be if I stuck with Forestry, but I look around at my life and realize I would never change anything as you never know how things would end up.
And my current career aspirations are to survive another 4-5 yrs in the IT industry, then retire and work at the local Home Depot selling 2X4's.
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Ah, skip Home Depot. Go to a local guy, support the little guy.
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They have tables at home depot or 2 by 4's for them as well...
I"m not sure where the stored procedure saw row is but some will run your query for you.I've been at IT for 15+ years at whatever level, equipment and tasks were required of the company at the time. I've found I just naturally like to put ones and zeros in interesting orders through a variety of tools. Sometimes they make interesting things of business related nature other times it's more mundane or of self interest.
I guess it all stems from my desire to have the output device do what I want it to do instead of just consuming Tv or radio.
Other paths, such as enviornmental studies (not into pulling trees), literature (it turns out I'm not Shakespeare after all), politics (the high pay and little purpose would drive me around the bend) round out my university education and much of my useful computer knowledge really has come down to persistance rather the abstractions taught in university and lets me speak in o notation and data stuctures that few care let alone understand and are becoming less relevent with most modern paradigms of programming these days
I tried walking away, but I keep getting pulled back in, and the pay anit bad. As for being a DBA, my details are farther reaching well at least in my opinion of what DBA's do, but were a smaller company so at least my servers were built by me and my notes on the patches put on them are consistant.
I end up devleoping driver solutions and other programing solutions, web or otherwise, so its interesting I always like trying to include SQL or MSDE where ever I can. Who wouldn't like something called a multi phase data pump, that just screams star trek.
I like what I do and the opportunities it avails to me, but you never know where life might take you all you can do is enjoy and hope the good times out number the bad.
Cheers.
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