Ramblings Of A Silly Old Man - CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

A DIFFERENT CAREER PATH

A different career path, a different life.

I love going into schools and speaking with teenagers, for me it is such an inspiring time. If we can just hang on until this younger generation takes over running our world everything will be OK.

In schools I am often asked the question: Do you like what you do ?  I always say NO then pause before punching my fist into the air and say I don't like what I do, I LOVE it !

I tell teenage friends never to be con tent with liking anything they do, always inject passion and love it.

Sometimes I am asked among the various jobs I have done in my life which do I like the most. To that I reply explaining when I left school and worked as a trainee manager in a large department store that was the best job but when I left and changed career I loved being a teacher and that became the best job ever for me.

Now I am a radio DJ and that is the best possible job ever.

A much harder question I am sometimes asked is if I could have done something different with my life, followed an alternative career path what would that be ?  Now that is a hard question answer.

I would have liked to have been a singer but I simply can not sing.  I would have liked to have been an opera singer and to have performed The Bindisi from Verdi's La Traviata. That would have been fun.

Singing is a talent, you can not learn it, you are born with it. Sadly I was not born with that talent.  Was I born with any talents I ask myself ?

I will say to teenagers that when I was at school I was clever enough to achieve at a level which gave the appearance I was working when I was not.  Getting the GCE O'Levels I needed to join the retail management course was easy. However, when I wanted to become a teacher I did not have enough qualifications so I had to go to college in the evenings to gain the extra exam passes I should have gained at school.

Imagine your classroom is a market stall, I tell my young friends, and your teacher is the market trader. He is saying Roll Up - Roll Up - everything is free, take what you like.  I then say don't just take anything you think you need, grab it all !  It's free and you have no idea what you may be able to use in the future. Pile it high.

So back to my career, what would I like to have been ?

I would like to have been a doctor, a surgeon, a transplant surgeon.  Next time round I will work harder at school.