A few months ago, I was in the midst of a long car ride next to my 13-year-old daughter when she brought up her future.
Specifically, that she didn’t know what she wanted to do for a job someday. She’s interested in graphic design and writing (*proud mom moment*), but she expressed some concern that she wasn’t sure yet—after all, one of her friends has already made long-term plans for achieving her botanist dreams.
It got me to thinking. When I was in college back in the early 2000s, I had a pretty clear picture of myself as a graphic designer, but the idea in my head was not at all what my career has ended up being.
That said, I’m glad, because it’s been a much broader experience to learn all kinds of things I never expected to know how to do—using AI, tracking web development software, pairing Zapier with dozens of other platforms, donor relationship management software… And that’s when it hit me—
Much of what I do today didn’t even exist in 2005.
So, that’s what I told my daughter—the career you’re going to have someday might not have been imagined yet. Choose to love learning, and you’ll always be ready for the next thing.
Speaking of loving to learn… One thing that I never pictured myself doing was teaching people about more efficient and effective ways to use the information they already have. But here we are!
