The irony was not lost on me this week as two things job related happened.
The first was the survey that suggested over half of us regret our career choice.
That struck me as profoundly sad. Say whatever you want about work and work-life balance, but a lot of hours are spent in a lifetime grafting. Virtually everyone, at least at the start, has to work.
Everyone of course should work because it's good for you. But to have a lifetime of regret is to not have really lived at all, or at least not to your full potential.
Juxtaposing that was the surprise, to me anyway, that I had been here at Newstalk ZB for 25 years.
A smaller surprise was on the same day, April 1st, Morning Report at Radio New Zealand was marking 50 years. I spent a short stint at Morning Report in moderately, although ultimately, I think, successful circumstances.
Without word of a lie I have loved every day, of every week, of every month, of every year. Not just at Newstalk ZB, but the 44 years I have been in this game.
Of course I had bad days. I had bad employers, I had ropy times and I've been sacked twice by morons, but I've never regretted picking doing what I do.
Which is a small miracle, given I have never really been able to tell anyone with any clarity why I picked this game in the first place, other than it seemed appealing.
I had no mentors or people I knew in media. As a kid I listened to the radio and thought that sounds fun. As it turns out, I was right.
The other small saviour has been the fact that not only didn’t I regret it, it worked out moderately well in terms of gainful employment, because at no stage in the past four decades have I been able to conjure up an alternative.
I literally cannot think of anything else I would want to do.
I would like to think though, and this goes to the survey, that if it hadn't gone well or I did regret it, I would have done something about it.
Because life's big lesson is life is short. And if you aren't rolling with it, you are fighting it.
And that’s no fun and it wears you out.
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