Jack of All Trades?

Tags

life experience

I am the guest blogger on “A Slice Of Orange” this month – I’m writing about the existential angst of having too much experience spread out over too many areas -Enjoy!
Please visit this unique and inspiring site, filled with interesting insights from a wide selection of authors.

I Am a Boiled Frog

Tags

change, life experience

And in all probability, so are you.

We’re all familiar with the adage that if you drop a frog in boiling water, he’ll immediately jump out. The flip side of the story tells us if you put a frog in tepid water and raise its temperature slowly enough, he’ll stay there ’til he’s cooked.

I am reminded on a weekly basis (sometimes daily) about the person that I am — and how I bear little resemblance to the person I was, or even the person I thought I would turn out to be. A long series of small changes leads to a big difference.

Today, that moment of realization occurred when I had a glass of milk. It was a glass of 2% — I normally drink and cook with 1% milk. After a single sip, I remarked on its fatty taste and texture.

I immediately flashed back to my youth, when my family struggled to make it through our weekly budget. One of my cornerstones of my childhood diet was powdered milk. If you dislike today’s fat-free milk, I guarantee you will be revolted by that loathsome bilge of sky-blue fat-free powder-and-water mixture. I have never had that vile Carnation concoction since I finished high school, and hope to never allow it past my lips again.
Time, tide, and tightening belts (due to dietary restrictions, not financial), now have me at the 1% mark. And I prefer it. How times and tastes have changed!

I’ve noted several other changes in my tastes – for example, I now love spinach and grapefruit, foods I could not tolerate until a mere five years ago.

On the non-gastronomical front, things certainly have taken paths I never could have guessed at. As a child, I wanted to be an astronaut veterinarian. My actual career path was solidly grounded on earth, wending through organist, physicist, electrical engineer, software systems analyst, animator, to arrive at my current vocation — writer.

About the only thing that has been constant through that journey is that I have been blessed, allowed to do the things I love to do.

On the subject of being blessed, my belief system has had a similar multi-directional slog through the spiritual multi-verse — from Moravian, to Jesus Freak, to sullen agnostic, finally re-embracing being born again. My stint as a church organist put me in a unique position to sample all that is right (and all that is wrong) over a wide spectrum of denominations. As a result, my belief system is one that both Catholic and Baptist would shake their collective heads at. The feeling is mutual, friends. My best advice is to remove the log from your own eye.

I don’t say that to condemn, but rather to urge you, dear reader, to try something new. Life is change. Perhaps you should have a try at being boiled. Maybe you already are, you just don’t know it. A moment of reflection, and we all can learn something.