It’s actually a spiritual discipline of sorts: stability in one’s life.

Of course, I madly envy Anthony for getting to attend this concert.

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A. How many of the jobs people do today existed 50 years ago? How many types of jobs that were common fifty years ago were obsoleted by technological change?

B. People who know what they love and see a way to make a living doing it will probably still stay in their careers long-term. But many people, possibly most, have always taken what they could get because they had to make a living and there are a lot of jobs that need to be filled that are not in themselves particularly fulfilling. (One can find fulfillment in a job because doing a job well glorifies God and provides for loved ones. But one can do that equally well by changing careers as by staying in one.) What virtue is there in spending 50 years as a machine operator, just because that’s the job that was available when you needed one after high school?

C. Second career people often bring new insights and abilities to the new career. Sure, it’s great if someone is a teacher for fifty years. But the businessman or scientist who decides to go into teaching brings something to the classroom that the first career teacher cannot. There are different ways of thinking in different kinds of work, and cross-pollination of different kinds of thinking can be a great benefit.

D. That doesn’t mean that every career change is good. Some of it is because we do a poor job of helping young people pursue realistic job prospects. There needs to be some balance between “you can be anything you want to be” and “your abilities and temperament will contribute more to your success in some kinds of careers than others.” Some of it is because young people have not learned to really stick to something long enough to get past both the initial learning curve and the boredom that sets in once the job becomes very familiar.

But if someone went into a career for the money, then realized there was more to life than money, and it takes a few career changes to figure out what really is a good fit, is that a bad thing? Or if someone with dreams of being a doctor left college to take care of an ailing parent, enrolling instead in a community college that provides technicians for local companies (I had a co-worker who did this), which is more evidence of stick-to-it-iveness – spending fifty years as a technician, or eventually finishing the education to be a doctor?

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For another matter, every worker must maintain his “rep” as one who continually adds value to the organization. A worker who stays in the same job for long begins to be seen as lacking vision or the competence to move on to something else.

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Looking at that threshold is making a difference in my perspective.

Where do I go from here?

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In an era where so many will not admit to wanting to be in any status for the rest of his life or see themselves incapable of that (same job? Same wife? Same house?) fewer still are willing to say “This is my calling. This is what God would have me do all the rest of my days”
But the trend pattern I see is someone doing this job for perhaps twenty and then–having grown bored or advanced as far as they can it it–switching to another altogether. The second career will maybe have a career after it

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