Myrtle Manners

The last time I posted on this blog (quite a while ago),  I was a Northerner and Eastern Pennsylvania resident. This week marks one year since my husband and I became residents of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. In that year, nothing has changed and everything has changed. Paring down to essentials after 60+ years of collecting stuff was painful, to say the least. And then there was the renovating/selling of the former home and the building of the new one. The first time we saw our new home was 2 days before closing. I do not recommend this approach to home construction. Thankfully, we had excellent realtors who visited the site frequently, corrected errors and sent us pictures of the progress.

For many years we had vacationed in Myrtle Beach, loved it, and finally decided we had had enough of the cold Northern winters and it was time to move south. So we did. The enormity of this move at the age of 65 did not really hit me until recently when I had some time to reflect on what we had done. We were initially too busy with all the details of the move and getting settled, and too excited about living in a place we had come to love, to think about the huge changes we had experienced and were still going through. I realize now there were days when I felt embraced by the warmth of the weather and the sweet Southern hospitality, and then there were days when it seemed as if I had been abducted by aliens and plunked down on a foreign planet. There are lots of former Northerners here, but most have quickly discovered that you either “go native” or get smacked with a cultural 2 by 4.

I’ve tried my best not to say things like “back up north we did thus and so or we did it this way.”  Southerners, no matter how sweet, do not like to be reminded that Yankees do things differently and often think the Yankee way is better. In some ways, being a transplanted Northerner is like being a high school student who has moved to a new school and is trying to figure out how to fit in without being “slushied” like the hapless kids on the TV show, Glee.  

I am trying to get used to a different concept of time. The combination of a laid-back Southern lifestyle and the perpetual vacation atmosphere of a resort area produce the prevailing idea that there’s no need to hurry anywhere or do things asap. The coin of the realm is the “round toit,” as in “ma’am, don’t you worry, we’ll take care of that when we get around to it.” Apparently it takes quite a while to acquire that coin. To an extent, this is a healthy approach, except when it results in Northern blood pressure rising when things don’t happen on schedule. Actually Northern  and Southern blood pressure has probably already risen because they fry everything here, including pickles.

After a year, we are still working on some of the punch list items we identified during the walk-through of our home last August. And we are still waiting on new doors to our refrigerator so that it will close properly; that’s another story. The builder’s construction manager has spent so much time here that our dog thinks he’s a member of the family. I don’t even want to mention the snakes, lizards, palmetto bugs, mosquitoes, fire ants, and feral cats, who sleep on our doormat at night. I’m slowly  getting used to the fact that at least some people sitting near me in a movie theater or restaurant are packing heat.

Although I still won’t eat grits, all in all, I am quite happy to be living in Myrtle Beach. There is very little, if any, snow, and it melts almost as it falls. You can go Christmas shopping in December in shorts and flipflops. There is an endless variety of things to do and restaurants to try. There’s world class entertainment such as the Carolina Opry and other venues. Yes, July is a big wall of humidity and tourists, but you can’t have perfect weather all the time, and the tourists keep our taxes low. People are usually friendly and helpful (even in Walmart), and a big smile and friendliness on your part can work wonders when you need a strong person to load heavy items into your car. Up north they just ignore you.

I have landed in a foreign culture, but I’m learning the language and the habits of the people. And I know useful things like always look for a parking space in the shade during the summer, put mothballs around the house to discourage snakes, South Carolina barbecue is tomato-based, and the plural of y’all is all y’all. So, all y’all, I love your city and your state, and I intend to stay here for the rest of my life. This is now home. Sorry, Pennsylvania. Oh, and the best part is that now when my career coaching clients tell me they’re too old to change, or change is too scary, I can say to them:  “You can do this. I know, I’ve been there. It’s OK to be scared. I was scared too, but when you make that needed change, it is so worth it.”

Nourish Your Career Interview

Recently I contributed to an excellent book on careers: Nourish Your Career, by Shahrzad Arasteh. Here's an audio clip of her interview with me, as it appears on her site. Writing for the book and having a wonderful conversation with Shahrzad were great experiences for me--and so much fun.

http://careerconsultmd.typepad.com/nourish_your_career/2012/04/nourish-your-career-contributor.html

Are You In The "Right" Career?

I have always been fascinated by how we choose our careers—or how our careers choose us. Some of us end up doing work we love because it’s a perfect fit for our temperaments and life goals; others stay for years in jobs that suck out their life force. I once worked with a woman whose wall calendar was filled with X’s, marking off the days until she was eligible to retire in another 10 years and do what she really loved—baking extraordinary cookies and cakes. She reminded me of a prisoner patiently making chalk marks on a wall while dreaming of freedom.

As a career coach I’m frequently called on to help clients figure out their life’s work. They ask me “How do I know I’m in the right career” or “How can I discover what I’m really good at and would be happy to do for the rest of my life?” So how do we really know? We can take various career assessments and personality profiles to see how our interests and abilities match those of others who are successful in a particular line of work. Those tests can give us important clues about our options but they can’t make decisions for us.

So what’s so important about choosing a career that’s a good fit? Just look around you. The fallout from disastrous career choices is not pretty. Some very “successful” people turn out to be profoundly miserable and take it out either on their colleagues or themselves. For example, we all know doctors who, after completing many years of training, realize their chosen career is all wrong for them. Rather than throw away many years of preparation, they continue to treat patients while going through the motions. The results can range from minor medical errors to personal or professional tragedy. And I have lost count of the numbers of people who were happy doing their jobs until the day someone made them a “supervisor”. Usually, unhappy supervisor equals unhappy workers as well.

I have also encountered people doing so-called “dirty jobs” who dispense unlimited amounts of wisdom and joy while going about their daily tasks. One man in particular sang and smiled while emptying the trash. When I asked him why he always seemed so cheerful, he responded that he believed he was doing the work he was put on earth to do and was happy to do it to the best of his ability while making others’ days brighter. His attitude was a great reminder of the impact any of us can have—positive or negative—no matter what we do to earn a living. I believe that most of us want to make a positive contribution, but what agonies we often go through to find work that nourishes us as well.

Parker Palmer, in Let Your Life Speak, says “Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you . . . Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about—or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions.” In my experience, many of us reach midlife without having truly listened to the “voice of vocation” as Palmer calls it.

So here’s my advice to those of you just beginning your career journeys or contemplating a change:

a Take the time to really listen to that voice. Choose a career—or make a change—because you know it is absolutely the right thing for you to do. Choose work that feels so right you can’t imagine doing anything else.

a Discover your passion and follow it. I vividly recall a client who, when I asked her what she was passionate about, responded “nothing, really,” then after a long silence said, “Well, I kind of like people.” Not good enough!

a Don’t choose a career just because the job is high paying or prestigious or your parents/friends want you to take up a particular line of work.

a Don’t “settle” just to pay the mortgage and put food on the table. Yes, you may need to find work that takes care of the bills, but don’t give up on your dream while addressing reality. For example, find a job with an organization that offers tuition reimbursement so you can prepare for your career of choice while making a living.

a Don’t let fear of the unknown or what others will think stop you before you even get started.

a Never let others disabuse you of your gifts and your purpose for being on earth.

a When you’ve found your vocation, remember to use your talents to help other people, just as they helped you achieve success.