Late Bloomer
In the bouquet of life, I am the flower that bloomed late.
As a kid I always wanted to be an artist. My skills were often praised but the compliments were often followed by warnings about how art didn’t pay the bills. Weird thing to tell a kid showing off a fantastic crayon rendering of a cat, but ok.
I passed on my dreams of being an artist and ended up investing a decade into being a professional cook at some higher end restaurants, and while it was a huge learning experience and helped shape me into the feisty package I am today, it wasn’t what I wanted to do. So at the age of 28, I decided that I had had enough of the kitchen life with its long, sweaty hours, accidental burns and creative injuries, and went back to school.
To be an artist.
The worst thing possible according to the adults from my childhood.
By 30, I had a Graphic Arts degree under my belt and quickly enrolled at a university to earn my Bachelors of Fine Arts, which is a fancy way of saying I studied art but didn’t have to take a language. Aside from being an “elder” student I loved it all. The hours spent in studios bent over various projects, the lectures about art history, even the cramming for finals into horrendous hours of the early morning. I loved it because this is what I had always wanted and I was finally making it happen.
It was scary to leave a career path that I had invested a decade of my life to. To leave that stability of always being able to find a job for a certain amount of money that I knew I could survive on. It is completely reasonable to fear making changes but you can’t let that apprehension stop you from exploring the life you want. Something that we have all learned recently is that we have no idea what life is going to throw at us next, so it is important to figure out what you want and how to make that happen.
The last couple years have been, to use a scientific term, bananas. Many people that were advancing in their careers were forced to find new avenues because of the pandemic. Their businesses were not suited to a lockdown existence, closures and down sizing, or they realized that working for a company that didn’t appreciate them wasn’t worth it anymore. They had to move due to housing issues or to take care of family. They suddenly were the primary education givers in their children’s lives. Whatever the reason, lots of people in their 30s and up have found themselves going back to school or starting in fresh new careers.
Sticking with something because you’ve invested time and money into it even though you are miserable is called the sunk cost fallacy. Continuing to do something because of the impression that by quitting you are wasting the time or money invested. So what? Is it worth making yourself unhappy and investing even more time and money into?
Allow yourself to take time and make small steps. Don’t feel like you have to completely uproot your entire life because you want to make a career change later in life. Unless that is how you roll, then you do you. You are allowed to go at a pace that feels right to you and if that means you take longer to accomplish your goal, then guess what, you still accomplish your goal.
You can’t be too precious with your career. Don’t be afraid to go in a completely different direction because you never know what change might bring you to something amazing.