The Constant Quest for Authenticity

One of the most precarious pitfalls to which a career counselor can succumb is to give advice and not follow it. It's a throwback to those parental voices--"Do as I say, not as I do."

One of the methods I use for life planning in Career TPMS is for clients to create a broad Interstate Highway plan for life, but with Access Road possibilities. Life is a journey and like any well-planned trip, we know Interstate Highways are the fastest, safest, smoothest method of getting to our destination.

On the other hand, any experienced driver knows that Interstate Highway's all look alike with little variation, and after a while, those predictably safe roads can literally put a driver to sleep.

The most interesting journeys require that we take a chance, get off the highway and visit an out-of-the-way place. Sometimes those detours are joyfully serendipitous and sometimes, not, but we can easily get back on the Interstate Highway and continue our trip, until the next detour beckons to us.

Over two years have passed, since I sold my home of 26 years, downsized to a small condominium, and relinquished my maternal role to the misty landscapes of the past. My Interstate Highway plan was to practice career counseling June to December and to write and speak January through May.

Then an Access Road possibility appeared--in the form of running for political office. I got off the Interstate and took the detour--it didn't turn out the way I envisioned, but I don't consider it a loss--not even close. I shared my heart and my ideals with hundreds of people who were strangers at first and now, they are friends.

More importantly, for my clients, I'm an authentic example of the Interstate Highway Plan/Access Road Possibilities. I took Robert Frost's less traveled road and it did, indeed, make all the difference, but now, back on the Interstate, none the worse for wear.

I held my breath, took a risk, leapt off into the black abyss of the unknown and uncertain. I survived and miraculously, thrived.

My present Interstate Highway plan is to get Of Tapestry, Time and Tears published, travel to India in January and stay for at least eight weeks following in the footsteps of the heroine of the novel. I have spring plans for going with a dear friend who has a home in Condessa, a colonias of Mexico City, to talk to a student who is doing a dissertation on human rights violations in Mexico. Then to dive back into career counseling in June through December.

But those are just my Interstate Plans.

Another access road might call to me to get off the Interstate and I will do just that.

Take a risk, be frightened, but don't attach any expectation to the outcome.

I can now say that to my clients with the greatest of confidence and most importantly, authenticity.