Changing Course

There are a lot of lessons we learn, not from our own experiences, but from others.

While I was in college I rented a house with 3 other students. One of them had completed his 4 year liberal arts degree. He discovered that the job opportunities this presented to him were less than appealing, so he went back to school.

He entered a 3 year law degree program at a pricey local university, paid for in full by his more than proud dad. The first year was tough. The professors worked the students hard and attrition was high - something like half the class didn't make it to the second year. The second year wasn't much easier. I remember the stacks of books piled in his room and the amount of time he spent pouring over them. But if a student survived the first 2 years, they were considered golden. While the first two years whittled the body count down, the third year was smooth sailing.

My housemate survived the first two years and started the final stretch. Then he had another change of conscience. With little more than half a year to go he decided that a career in law wasn't for him. Everyone questioned his sanity. He had made it too far to quit. Even his professors tried to convince him to stay the course. "At least get the degree". His dad was especially put out.

Do you know what my housemates biggest lament was? He wished that instead of spending the outrageous amount of (his dad's) money on law school, that he had taken it to a quaint village he knew of in Mexico where he could have lived on it very comfortably for 20 years or more. "Like a king"... Of course the reality of being unemployed with little savings set in shortly after.

Was he a fool? Most certainly. But it was his to be. Sometimes we need to pursue a path to find out it really doesn't go where we want to be. There may be other lessons in the story, but the lesson I learned was respecting him for being his own person and making the tough decision. He made a decision that was right for him, even when the easy thing would have been to sell out to the expectations around him.

Random Ponderings...

My health club is in the same building as a Baskin Robbins Ice Cream store. Do you think they increase each other's business?

At my health club the treadmills and stair steppers face a front window. We watch the cars hunting and waiting for parking spaces to open up near the door even when there are plenty of spaces a row further away. Do these drivers think they're conserving energy for their workout?

Why do some women put on makeup right before working out?

Sylvester Stallone has announced tentative plans for new Rambo and Rocky movies. He is also publishing a magazine named "Sly" attempting to appeal to men. Does this count as a mid-life crisis or a late-life crisis? Can't he get into politics like the rest of Hollywood?