Our Turn by Kirstine; Stewart Read Free Book Online Page B

nineteen and twenty-one and within a year they were on a ship to Canada, hungry to carve out a better life. My father took a clerking job at amining company and worked his way up to become head of its exploration division in Latin America.
    My mother worked full-time as a draftsperson until she had children. But even after my sister and I were born, she found ways to turn her natural talent as an artist into extra income. Art was in her blood. Her father was a gifted painter who produced a notable portrait of Lord Robert Baden-Powell, the British baron who founded the Boy Scouts Association (my granddad was one of the original six Boy Scouts). Yet neither my grandfather, a scientist by profession, nor my mother, would have regarded art as a way to make a living. My mother used her artistic talents to make pocket money at craft shows, setting up a booth where she sold beautiful hand-knit sweaters that featured impressionist landscapes rendered in angora, silk and cashmere. In the corner of her booth, I knit, too, well enough that I eventually knit for people on commission, making sweaters and baby clothes.
    I was always drawn to the arts—design, literature and music. All through school I played the flute, saxophone, oboe and clarinet. At the University of Toronto, I earned a coveted spot in the creative writing class of Josef Skvorecky. But I wanted to marry my talents with something concrete—a “real” job. I mixed courses in finance and other subjects in with my English lit classes. It’s been a mantra of the Baby Boomers and the generations who followed that you should follow your dreams. But in my family, as with many immigrant households, making a good living was the dream that mattered most.
    So I decided to go into publishing. Apart from my love of reading, I had no burning desire to actually be a publisher,but I thought the options of an English lit grad were limited, and teaching was not for me. In publishing I could earn a salary in a job that was at least related to creative writing. But when fate threw me into the television industry, I discovered that I could learn to love the job I’d stumbled into.
    Down with the Five-Year Plan
    THAT OPENNESS TO NEW OPPORTUNITIES, however unpredictable or unexpected, has been a major element of my success. When people, usually women, ask about my professional achievements, I can honestly say they have had more to do with taking chances than setting a career goal. I never set out to navigate a route to the top tier of any organization or corporation. To me, the most exciting career paths are those that unfold in unexpected ways. I am anti five-year-plan because in my experience the best things do not flow from making a plan and sticking to it. The key is to believe that you have what it takes not only to meet the challenges you find along the way, but to be open to what you learn on that journey. If you lock yourself into a single dream job you’re desperate to attain, you may close yourself off from something even grander.
    There’s a growing recognition that following one’s dreams or passions is no guarantee of success or happiness. Author Cal Newport, a computer scientist at Georgetown University, calls it the “passion trap” and suggests that passion may in fact be the root of widespread workplace unhappiness. In his recent book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You , Newport arguesthat if people only seek out work they love, they are bound to become disillusioned when they fail to love the work they do and essentially find their dreams unfulfilled. The passion trap prevents people from pursuing opportunities that don’t match their preconceived dreams.
    As technology rapidly reshapes the global economy, relying on your dreams to guide your worklife could hold you back from what can make you truly happy. Traditional industries are being transformed (or failing) and traditional jobs are morphing and vanishing too. Today’s