Connecting The Dots...

It has been a blessing and a curse for me. 

I’m interested in too many things. 

A teacher once said to me, “You’re so lucky to be interested in everything.”

For me, it often didn’t feel like I was very lucky at all. 

Yes, I know a little about an awful lot of things - from reading mostly - but I was never one who developed a passion for a single topic. Some people love music and become musicians, others love chemistry and become chemists; whatever it is, it’s their passion and it defines them to some degree.

I think life would have been easier had I fallen in love with just one thing and made it my life’s work. But, I was interested in so many things I could never choose what to focus on in the long term. I did some of this, a little of that, drifting into new professions and abandoning old ones. I had no clear path and, frankly, I was a little jealous of those who did, of the people who figured out what they love, and spent a lifetime doing it.

But, I am reminded by what Steve Jobs said in his Stanford Commencement address:

“Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later.”

I never expected to be a teacher but now, when I look back at the dots, I can see that I’m where I should be. If I had become a teacher 25 years ago,  I probably wouldn't have been ready. Now, after years of seemingly unconnected experiences, it all comes together for me.

I am in exactly the right place, at exactly the right time, doing exactly what I should be doing.