Warm, Soft Facts about Your Career

Why do we talk about the cold, hard facts?

Because they hurt when we get hit by them?

Because we need to feel pain in order to learn something?

I disagree, and if that separates me from the masochists then so be it, they will enjoy being rejected anyway.

Facts are facts. The only coldness or hardness is in the way we give or receive them and we can all do something about that.

Continuing the theme...This place is like a box of chocolates

[Image courtesy of Pablodda on Flickr]

Here are a few facts about work that lose nothing and gain everything when you take them warm and soft instead of cold and hard.

It's an inevitability that one day we will all retire from work. It's also an inevitability that at some point in our retirement we will look back and reflect on the work we have done, the people we did it with and so on. No matter how we divide it up or how many smaller parts we cut it into, we will ultimately package our working life as a whole. We'll do this because of our need to find something simple to define and make sense of our experiences, all the jobs we had, the different things we achieved and the struggles we went through.

If you haven't retired yet, here's a warm, soft fact for you. Wherever you are and whatever you are doing right now, you can remind yourself ahead of time that it's part of a much bigger story. Now that might not sound warm and soft if you're not working, or you're finding it hard to get a job or figure out what you want to do but, right now, whatever you are doing, it's still your career and one day you will know that to be true.

Warm, soft facts like this say to us, Why wait?

When you look back on your career from your future retirement, you'll remember all the moments that were tough to live through. Some of your memories may even give you a chill when you think about them but it's also possible for these moments to be a great source of personal satisfaction. Not just because you picked yourself up and found the energy to move beyond them and turn things around but also because they were the moments and the times that led to new things, that connected your experiences and your life in ways that were unique and special to you.

These times will have played their role in the much bigger story of your work and your life as a whole and they can give you a warm, soft feeling that beats its cold, hard cousin any day.

All the best for now (from a warm, soft place),

Paul