What If My Life Were Different
Have you ever, at any point, thought, "Hey, what if my life were different?" Well, me too. I have thought that many times. Offen times in a negative way, as in, "Hey, what if I would just grow up and act like a mature adult instead of continuing to make bad choices?" But also I think it in a less negative way on occasion, as in, "What if I chose a different career than I chose?" I'm sure lots of people think that, and some of them think it so much they actually... choose different careers. But I never did, and probably never will, and so all I have ever done is daydream about what else I seriously might do to make a living.
My dad has always told me that if you love what you do, it's not work. I believe it, man. I have been so blessed to be able to have a job that I love doing, and so it's not necessarily work. Parts of it are less fun than other parts, and some parts are tedius and more like work than some of the more interesting stuff that is like... not work. But overall, I really love what I do. My job is not a chore. I don't dread showing up... virtually, of course. I don't dread seeing my boss call to talk to me, actually I look forward to that. My boss and my other boss are cool dudes. And I don't dread the tasks I'm assigned to do.
But I know not everybody has a job like that. Some people, for example, work in retail. That is not a job you'd generally enjoy or look forward to, unless God made you to be a retail worker. And He definitely has made some like that. I actually went to college with a guy who just loved working at Kroger. Like, could not wait to get there every day. Most of those guys, though, are working because they need to make money. There are lots of jobs like that, some of them nobody wants to do. But my point is, I have a good job, which aligns with my interests, and does not feel like work to me. But, sometimes I muse, what if I chose a career that aligned with different interests I had?
For those of you who are unaware, I am an IT guy. I work at a small MSP, less than ten employees, and we support around five hundred small businesses across Kentucky and Indiana. And, if I haven't said so yet, I really like that job a lot and that's because it is such a small working environment. I worked at a huge, huge corporate corporation doing an internship back in the summer of 2022, and I quickly learned that was never going to be something I liked. Too big. There were over fifty-six offices that company had and they were still growing. I worked there the whole summer and probably didn't even meet half of the server team. Too many people. I'm a pretty small scale kinda guy. This MSP job is something I like better.
But, growing up, it took me a while to decide on IT as a career. I also considered software development, but thankfully I tried my hand at that and quickly realized I could never do that for a living (blog post on that coming soon). Luckily that was early enough on that I didn't waste any college time or money on it. But I had several other hobbies as well that I've considered as plan B and Plan C if IT didn't work out.
Well, of course, I'm a musician, so I thought about that too. And I've always been interested in, believe it or not, weather. I thought being a meteorologist would be very interesting. But I've been told by several people that I have a voice for radio, and I've also considered doing that too. That seems like it would be cool. I even, for a few brief years in my youth, imagined I was creative enough to write books, and so I composed several ridiculous short stories, poems, and a series of chapter books based on a bunch of made up adventures I had with my best friend at that time. Those adventures, somehow, seemed to bear a striking resemblence to many of the novels and series I was reading through those years. I still have all the stupid stuff I wrote as a kid, and cringe every time I convince myself to read it.
Anyway though, I never really went after any of those other career paths. The reason being that I could never see them working out quite as easily as I could see IT working. Like, for example, I think being a professional musician would be great, man. It would be so cool to specialize in an instrument and know it so well that you could express yourself through it. And because of your skill level, be paid to do that. Plus, you could always be coming up with new and really interesting musical ideas to create, and that would be cool.
But, I never could decide what instrument to specialize in when I was growing up. I still can't. Even so,, in the back of my mind somewhere, I imagine that one day I'll decide to really knuckle down and dig into one instrument or another, and then I'll be able to have a nice side hustle playing it on studio sessions or in live gigs. Not realistically though. I like music as a whole too much to focus on any one part of it. Style, genre, or instrument. If a piece of music sounds good to me, no matter what it is, then I can't help wanting to be able to recreate that pleasing structure for myself.
So I could never be a professional musician, nor could I teach music. I did take a couple of music classes in college just for fun, and in doing so I had some conversations with students who were after a music degree. Gosh, man, if it didn't sound like the degree took all the fun out of it! I think I'd probably enjoy music a lot less if I had to do it for a grade, or as a job. Getting paid to gig is one thing, that's not necessarily a job to me, but having to teach music in school or something... that would be.
I'm not a natural teacher, and especially not for music. I learn very well because I have a good musical ear. I absorb music. But when I play something, or when I try to explain to somebody why a certain chord or note should come next in a progression, I can't do it. Music to me just doesn't work like a set of rules. It works as a set of sounds. That can be very hard to teach to somebody who is new to music. Why should some particular sound work here and not there? Or why does this sound incredible while that doesn't work at all? IDK. Music would sure be hard to teach.
Plus, since I never have chosen to specialize in any one instrument, my level of playing never accellerates to an acceptable standard. My success rate when playing music isn't very high. I make many, many mistakes, and because I play so much by ear, I do badly with songs I've never heard before. Once I get the arrangement in my head I can do whatever I want with it, but until then I'm out of luck.
So, music as my career is definitely out. I'm more of a songwriter/producer anyway. I'm way better at creating music than playing it.
But what if I went to college to be a meteorologist? I don't know. I haven't thought seriously about it enough, only that it sounds interesting to me. I find weather patterns fascenating. I find the way it all works interesting. I find weather systems to be so cool. I've always wanted to understand, seriously, the science behind how it all works and know what's really happening in the great outdoors. Outdoor science as a whole has always interested me, to a point. I could get into it, I'm just not naturally as into it. But I'd like to be. Earth science, not necessarily biology or anything, But like, the earth itself and what goes on there. I'm pretty sure that's geology. Yeah.
But, realistically, way too much thinking involved there. Too much learning. I favor IT over science greatly because in my job, I perform tasks to solve problems on predefined, man-made systems with predefined sets of variables. They are systems that man created, which are understandable and able to be configured to make a customer happy. In science though, things aren't so easy. We're trying to understand systems that God made, which in my opinion, we never truly will, completely. We have enough understanding, but what happens when something blows all of our scientific data out of the water? Then what? I don't know man. That kind of stuff seems way above my head. Again, way too much thinking. IT comes very naturally to me and makes sense already, and involves little extra effort to learn more about. So it always made more sense to keep on learning, because it was easy and more interesting.
Not sure what I could or would even do with a geology or meteorology degree anyway, other than enjoy the vast quantity of knowledge I gained on the subjects. Guess I could be a weather guy, but somehow hairspray has never appealed to me.
So, I do have lots of ideas on what else I could have done with my professional life, but somehow none of them really seem to fit quite as well as the one I picked. What of my social life though? If I were a professional musician, things would be a lot different, I'll tell you that. I'd have to get out of my house, in order to go places to make money. I bet I would meet all kinds of interesting people. Maybe be part of a band, who maybe I'd get along well with. Or maybe not. I know bands are famously opposed to each other sometimes. The chances for a better social life are there, though. Right now, I work from home. It's just me and my dog here and I'm never forced to go out an meet anybody. That's instinctually how I live, though. No matter if I was offered the chance to go out and do something really fun, chilling out at home jamming or writing code always seems to sound better to me. Luckily not so much better that I'm a total introvert, but definitely better.
Well, I don't know. Just always interesting to think about what could have been. And who knows? It still might be. I sort of doubt it though. Changing is hard for me. Unless something really big happens in my life, I can't seriously see myself ever leaving the job I currently work at. I can't see myself ever wanting to change careers or do something new. I can't see myself ever becoming more disposed to any other kind of career path or kind of living than the one I'm doing now. As far as I'm concerned, I've achieved all my career goals. But, if anything ever does change, I guess I have plenty of other ideas on what to do instead.