Gordon, I agree with your take on career 110%. For those restless souls, and I am one of them, without change and innovation, there is stultification and emotional "death."
By the time I became credentialed in my primary career, I had already been through a couple of test careers, and I halted my direction at midlife to become a store owner, then returned to my primary career but in an entrepreneurial role.
My credentialing is in the field of psychotherapy. However, I have been a classroom teacher (middle school), an Associate Professor (a graduate school of Psychology), a professional journalist (weekly newspaper column on mental health), an author (two nonfiction books, a play, a screenplay, short stories, magazine articles), a furniture store owner, the owner of a chain of treatment clinics, a private practice in family therapy, and finally, as I allowed the sun to set on my primary career, the owner of an increasing number of rental properties.
My goal was never making money but I always made a good living. My goal was never to compete but I managed to overwhelm the competition in both of the private ventures. Presently, I have no interest in becoming the next, 'The Donald,' but I keep my eye over the horizon to what my next move may be.
For me, it is the quest, not the bottom line. My wife always joked that I probably have an invisible case of ADD. I disagree. I have wanderlust. I need the new and perhaps the extreme to keep myself excited. When I went into the furniture business, I went in undercapitalized, without any knowledge of the enterprise, 3000 from home where I had no social system other than my wife and kids. After paying opening costs and purchasing merchandise, I had about $1.24 in my checking account. The business made me a living from its inception and by the one year mark, had expanded to two stores.
When I wrote my first book, I had no intention of writing a book. I was completing a PhD program and it was supposed to be my thesis. My dissertation committee disagreed with the approach I took -- an experiential project rather than a well-researched one. I got so angry that I made a few poorly edited comments such as: "This work is so far over your heads that you are not qualified to judge it," and "I could get this work published by the first major publisher to see it." Do I have to tell you what happened? "Journeys to Recovery," a series of allegories, fairy tales and metaphors was published as a training text for graduate students in the field of therapy, and it was published as part of a series that is commonly purchased by all the University Libraries so that 18 years later (now) it is still in circulation. I had never even taken a course in writing in college. It also won an award and became part of the series of "Unique Ideas in 20th Century Human Development. I feel like the beggar at the window but some of the others in that collection of books and interviews include Benjamin Spock, MD, Carl Sagan, Anna Freud and Erik Erickson.
Now, with no knowledge other than what I taught myself, I am into the real estate game. So far, so good. It has been two months and I'm not tired of it yet and I'm planning my third purchase and first employing borrowed money. My latest joke is that I had to do extensive exercising to prepare for the role. Every time a rent check comes in, I have to open it ... with panache. I haven't suffered a sprained wrist or a cut finger yet. I can anticipate a nice monthly income and still have time to play on TBD!
What the heck? As I get older, I seem to want to take more risks rather than less. I don't have the physical stamina I had earlier in life but my mental acuity seems to rise when I test and exercise it.
My next career? Perchance I may run away and join the circus ... as a lion tamer!
Lollipops and unicorns.
