do i love my job?

(Browsing with Firefox? The text can be viewed clearly by changing the "Page Style." Go to View -> Page Style -> and select No Style)

Vancouver Canucks coach Marc Crawford wound up an interviewer recently by stating he loved his job as a coach, and wasn’t that one of the best things in life - to work at something you loved.

I’ve thought a lot about that in the intervening weeks. When I ask myself, how do I feel about my job, I can say the same thing: I love what I do - at least most of it, most of the time. To shore up my confidence that I’ve made the right career choices, and for those times I feel ambivalent I’ve decided to do a little back-tracking to examine how I come to be in the particular place I am. In the next few Mondays, then, I’m going to do some blogitating on work, some of the jobs I’ve had, how they suited me or didn’t, and what I’ve learned about myself, life and God’s leading along the way.

In 1990 as a parent of a kindergartner and preschooler, I came across the book Discovering Your Child’s Design (now out of print) by Ralph Mattson and Thom Black. The jacket notes promised this book would help me:
- See my child from a different perspective
- Observe repeated themes in my child’s actions
- Record and interpret significant behavior
- Identify the distinct qualities of each of my children
- Encourage each child to make the most of the gifts God has given him or her.

I purchased the book, read it, and bought into its premise that a parent’s responsibility was to discover each child’s unique design in order to help them experience social and school success and eventually guide them to a fulfilling career. Shortly I began what the authors suggested and set up a design journal for my two youngsters.

My success at keeping this journal was short-lived. I have about two or three entries for both of them and then silence. However, even though I wasn’t faithful in writing down what I observed, through the years I’ve been on the lookout for some of the things this book talked about. It made watchful for themes and consistencies in my kids’ behaviors. It helped me to see that how they interacted socially was a key to their personalities. It alerted me to the fact that each of them had individual learning styles.

Now that both of them are young adults, I’m not sure how much difference my observations made in my ability to steer either of them onto a career path. They seem to be doing that on their own without my helpful suggestions – thank you very much!

The other day as I was thinking about my own career path this book came to mind again, not as a tool to help my kids but as a way to help me sort out and understand my own design, albeit retrospectively. Yesterday I reread a big chunk of it and I realized I could use it as a lens through which to view my journey through work. I’ll be attempting to see where my life has been true to various themes, patterns and consistencies. I am confident that I will come away from this process more sure than ever that today I am in the right place - a place sympathetic to the way I was designed. In areas where I find my life is incongruent, perhaps I can still course-correct.

As you journey with me, why don't you examine the work milestones in your own life. Who knows what we will discover?