“So.  You were a teacher in the public schools for eight years.  Then you were the Executive Director of a non-profit theater?”

“Yeah.”

“And most recently you spent - what - 18 months working retail in a tobacconist?”

Ouch.  As he listed my resume, it did look like a downward spiral.  He didn’t care that the tobacco retail gig and the facilities manager job for a Lincoln Park massage school were part of a compromise between my wife and I at the time.  I mean, I could explain that she and I decided each to take a year to just be artists while the other worked whatever job he or she could find and then we’d switch.  But this was public radio.  My vast experience with cleaning the glass on the humidors and restocking cigars was probably not going to play big on my hiring prospects.

“All professional men are handicapped by not being allowed to ignore things which are useless.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

During freshmen orientation in college, our group of about 20 was asked what our career goals were. My initial major was hotel/restaurant management. The answers provided by everyone in that small lecture hall were strikingly similar. “I want to open my own chain of hotels. And be really wealthy.” I want to own an international chain of successful restaurants and be rich.” “I want to make a lot of money.” “Riches." "Nice cars." "Big houses." "Tax breaks.”

I was the last person to go. “Being rich would be nice. But as long as I have enough money to afford a few bowls of Cocoa Puffs each day, I’ll be happy.” It got a laugh. And that’s why I said it. I also wanted to depart from the apparent theme of money. And at the time, I meant what I said. But holy god was I wrong. Well, half of what I said was wrong. Following a change in major to journalism and with the benefit of two decades’ worth of hindsight, I certainly need more than a few bowls of Cocoa Puffs to be happy. But I was right in that money wasn’t the only driver for me.