Whatever you want

Thinking about her career choices?

When I was in high school, my dad gave me some career advice. He probably doesn’t recall it now, but it was so simple I have remembered it ever since.“If you work hard now then you can do anything you want.”  I remember being subsequently disappointed when I learned, at the age of thirteen, that I needed glasses. I had read somewhere that to be an RAF fighter pilot you needed 20:20 vision, an avenue that was now closed to me. I don't think I particularly wanted to be a fighter pilot, but I felt a huge sense of injustice all the same – my dad’s wisdom had been undermined by my rubbish eyesight, and no amount of hard work was going to make a difference.

There were a few things I vaguely wanted to be when I grew up. When I was young enough to still be playing with Lego my mum was convinced I would be a civil engineer, and for a while, that sounded quite exciting. Then, in the early years of my skiing career, I wanted to be a Ski instructor.  I went off the idea when I realised that most of the glamorous ski instructors we encountered in Italy in the early 1980s scratched out a living as shepherds in the summer. I definitely didn’t want to be a shepherd. I do know that by the time I got to sixth form college I wanted to be a lawyer, although I don’t know when I first decided this, and I still don’t know why.  But I programmed myself for success from that point on – from A-levels, to a law degree, to a training contract with a top firm, through ten years of hard work and to the cusp of partnership.

But it has only now, almost two decades later, become clear to me the question “what do I want to do” needn’t be confined only to consideration of my employment options. In fact, there are many things I want to be in life – a photographer, a climber, a writer, a mountaineer, an endurance athlete - none of which I believe I will ever be able to pursue as a career, but all of which I want to have a good go at.  And those are just the selfish me-centric things – I want to do all these things and still be the best husband and father I can.  Being a lawyer is OK as far as it goes, but it doesn’t come close to making it onto the list of things I want out of life.  Without a doubt my job has put me in a position where I can live in a beautiful home with the two girls I love more than anything in the world, and have enough financial security to pursue my passions.  The only thing is hasn’t brought me is time. 

It has been said that at each end of the socio-economic spectrum there is a leisure class: one cash-rich but time-poor, and the other time-rich but cash-poor.  I have naturally strived towards the former, but now perhaps its time to move the other way.   It is reassuring to know that my dad was right: I have worked hard, and now I can be whatever I want to be. I just need to make the time. I know this will involve taking some risks and making some quite scary decisions.  But as Helen Keller said, life is a daring adventure, or nothing.

As I write this Lara is sleeping beside me in her cot.  I wonder what she will be when she grows up.  I also wonder the extent to which what she is - and what she does - in life will be defined by her chosen line of work.  I hope she finds the right balance in her own way. But whatever the case, I can’t wait to pass on to her my dad’s words of wisdom.