Changing Careers

If the number of emails I’ve received from across the country is an indication, my Sun Media column yesterday appears to have touched a nerve with a lot of people. The subject was career changes. I used the example of my first “love”, acting, and how I came to arrive at broadcasting as my “true” love.

We live in an era when we expect to love our work. Our parents didn’t enjoy that luxury but we feel we are entitled to it and I say, rightly so. We spend so much of our lives doing work. Why waste that much time on something we don’t like?

Having said that, as grown-ups we also have to pay the bills and feed ourselves and as long as we’re not being flogged or taken advantage of, sometimes just getting the job done can be enough. It’s all in how you view it. It’s like I’ve always said about radio, “at least there’s no heavy lifting!”

Still, I do get the little inner tweak about acting sometimes. I would love to be involved with community theatre if I had my evenings free for rehearsals. Will Ferrell is currently running a charity auction to win a walk-on part in his next movie and if I had thousands of extra dollars for something completely frivolous to feed my inner child I’d be throwing my bank card into the ring.

To me, there isn’t a worse feeling than regret. Well, maybe guilt. But they are both the result of decisions – you decide to tell yourself that you regret something, don’t you? So my approach is to carefully choose a direction and then work with it – if it doesn’t turn out, then it doesn’t mean it was the wrong decision. It only means it hasn’t matched my imagination and life rarely does. If your job is making you miserable maybe it’s time to choose a new direction for yourself.