Now, I know that most normal people like to listen to music on their iPods when they go out for a run or hit the weight machines at the gym.
Not me.
I prefer to listen to lectures while I work out.
Whether I download my courses from some random (free) academic website or buy them through a company like the Great Courses/Teaching Company, I like to learn a little something while I sweat.
Yes, I know. I’m a big nerd.
Lately, I’ve been listening to a particularly terrific course given by Professor Dorsey Armstrong, all about the history of the Black Death in Europe.
(Hey, shut up: I already SAID I was a nerd.)
The point of all this is that the more I listen, the deeper I delve into whatever subject I’m learning about, the more I get the urge to completely change my career path.
For a few lectures, I wanted to be a medieval historian like the professor.
Then, I wanted to be an epidemiologist, studying the origins and causes of disease.
And it’s not just this recent interest in the Black Death that’s got me wondering if maybe I’m on the wrong path in life. In the past year or two alone, I’ve contemplated giving it all up to become all of the following and more:
- A therapist
- A veterinarian
- An art historian
- A fortune teller
- A meteorologist (oh, wait, I already mentioned becoming a fortune teller, and a meteorologist is basically the same thing)
- A tattoo artist
- A neurosurgeon
- A mortician
Of course, I realize these ideas are totally unrealistic.
I’m too firmly established in my “career” (if you can accurately call the scribbling I do by that name) to turn back now.
And as much of a nerd as I am, I don’t think I have the energy (not to mention the money) to go back to school for an advanced degree now.
But still, I can’t help but wonder if it’s a common affliction, or if I’m the only middle-aged woman in the world who’s still trying to figure out what I want to be “when I grow up.”
