Everything I Need To Know About Working, I Learned From A Four-Year-Old

Yesterday, while on a field trip with my daughter's class of preschoolers, my wife was deep in conversation with one of the other mothers, when a small voice called out to her, "Excuse me! Excuse me!" Candace turned her attention to one of the students, a boy named Eli, who obviously had something very urgent that needed to be relayed to a parent.

"Yes, Eli?" my wife asked him, no doubt expecting to hear about a need to use the restroom or that somebody's pumpkin had been taken by another student.

"When I grow up, I want to be a landscaper."

Candace laughed and offered an, "Oh yeah?" sort of response.

"Yes, and I will have a tractor that is too big to fit on the trailer that I pull behind my pickup truck."

When my wife relayed this story to me later in the day, I laughed at the humor of it, but it got me thinking. When I was four, I had all sorts of aspirations to do big things that I enjoyed, but never even considered the "prestige" or financial implications of those desires. I knew what I liked. I knew what I wanted to do. Nobody could tell me no.

I fast-forward a few years and find myself working in a cubicle, staring at a computer, growing stale under artificial light and controlled temperatures. Is this the career I had dreamed of? Not really. There are a lot fewer dinosaurs, airplanes and magic taking place than I had ever envisioned.

It's the story that most of us can tell. Our goals and priorities change, we take what we can get, we settle for mediocre because it is comfortable, or we kill ourselves working jobs we hate because of the recognition and the lifestyle it affords us.

Maybe Eli will change his mind as he grows up. He'll discover he has a desire to drive an expensive car. He'll want the next iDevice that Apple cranks out. He'll want the notoriety of having words like "Senior Vice President" in his job title.

Or maybe Eli will grow up to be the World's Greatest Landscaper, just like he had dreamed.

What Dreams May Come

Last night, I dreamed I was walking down a long gravel road strewn with broken down school buses, in order to reach a barn for some food. I have no idea why the food came from a barn, but that's just where everyone in the world got food from.

On the way, I passed my Aunt Sandy, who was walking away from the barn, talking to herself and not acknowledging having seen me.

When I got there, I found a guy I used to work with, named Miguel, talking to an Iranian guy about won-tons; not the kind in soup, the crispy fried ones. I know this, because Miguel asked the Iranian guy his opinion on won-tons and the guy replied, "They are crispy."

Miguel and the Iranian then had a short discussion about Miguel's (previously unknown to me) Egyptian heritage, and that it was obvious from the shape of the bridge of his nose. The Iranian guy disagreed and said that Egyptian noses had a slight bend in them, much like his, and that Miguel must be mistaken.

There is no point to this story, I just felt it was high time I updated the blog again.