Personal Development
What’s the attraction of Personal development?
I didn’t start down the road of wanting to develop myself personally. I started down a path to find a solution to a personal condition called “Stressed”.
I had married young and had 6 children by the time I was 30. I had studied and graduated with an Engineering degree which I discovered didn’t guarantee me a job and definitely didn’t guarantee that it was the right pathway for my life. I was more travelling down this career pathway because I had developed an ability to shove my brain full of facts and an ability to regurgitate these facts for exams. Also, my parents had wanted me to go to University. My dad left school at 14 to help in his father’s business and my parents who grew up through the post war society that believed that the key to a better life was through education.
The challenge for me was that I didn’t learn any stress reducing skills from my education other than drinking and smoking which, while they work, have side effects that are less than acceptable for most. My dad learned one that served him well. For the first 20 years of his working life he worked from about 1am to 6pm 5 days a week. After that he was home from about 3pm in the afternoon at which time he would have a cup of tea and a power nap (read- a wind, a relaxing catnap). This habit served him well all the way to still be full operational just prior to 90.
After working as an Engineer for 3 years, I realised that I had no desire to continue down this pathway. It seemed I had a natural affinity with the path my family had etched out over time. This proved to be another lesson from a mistake in my choices, a lesson that came from personal development………………..To be continued
