I have all these posts that I bookmark and mean to share and then forget to share.  But I figured I’d share one today and the one I chose is:

How long between leaps?  by Seth Godin

The post is about initiating change in your life on a periodic basis.  And I agree that this can be healthy and useful.

I personally need some sort of change every few years.  Fortunately for me, the first decade or so of my work career that happened naturally.  But now I could see myself limping along on my current path for years without any real change and being somewhat miserable but not so miserable that I do something about it.

I hate it when I see others living that way.  So, why would I?

(CAUTION: The rest of this post is a long-winded discussion of me and my personal thoughts for a new direction.  Be inspired by Seth’s post and find change in your own life, but only continue reading if you really want to know about my current random idea to shake up my life.)

I spent the past few days researching counseling programs with the thought that I might pursue a masters in counseling.  I don’t intend to stop writing, but I think I want a day job that is better aligned with who I am.

Why counseling?  Well, as part of the OSC writing class he recommended looking at Please Understand Me by David Keirsey, which delves into Myers-Briggs personality types.  I think it was recommended as a way to help authors understand different personality types, but I, of course, wanted to know about me first.

So, I took the little test and confirmed that I still am an INFP.  (Some of you are thinking that can’t change, right?  But, interestingly, when I took it back in 2005 I was just barely an I and barely an F.  This time I was most assuredly an I, but still borderline on the F and much more borderline on the P than before.  So it can change a bit…)

Anyway. The book basically recommended that INFPs pursue careers in ministry, social work, tutoring, child counseling, or college teaching in the humanities.  And it said to stay away from business.  (Funny, I’m in business right now…)

Which I think probably explains my general lack of interest in my job at the moment.  It’s not that I’m not good at what I do.  I think I’m actually good at it because I’m an INFP.  But, as we all know, pleasing others and pleasing yourself are two very different things.

And I’m currently not pleasing myself with my day job.  Feeding myself, yes.  (Which is very nice to do and should not be underestimated.)  But “feeding my soul”.  Mm.  No.  (I’d like to see the person who thinks that corporate consulting feeds the soul and then I’d like to see just how dark their soul is…)

So, true story, back way back when, I set out to be a child psychologist.  Problem is, I didn’t really know what I was doing.  So I transferred to one of those top-rated schools in psychology and figured out that they were top-rated for psychology research (which has next to nothing to do with counseling and is how I wandered my way into an anthropology degree.  Because the research side was boring to me.)

So, many years later I find myself circling back to that idea once again.  Except I’m old and going and become a PhD in something just doesn’t interest me.  But one to three years of pursuing a counseling degree?  Perhaps…

Still seems like a long time.  But I may have forty or fifty more years left on this earth, so what’s three years next to that?  And I think a counseling degree would actually benefit my writing a lot as well.  Because it would give me further insight into people.  So, two birds, one stone?

Perhaps.

It’ll be about six months or so before I act.  I need to see how something plays out first.  But then…who knows?