As a kid, and even as a teenager, I always dreamed of being someone important. My concept of how important someone was tended to be a little skewed, though. My idea basically ranked the more important a person was by the number of meetings they had to go to in a day. Of course, that meant in my childhood fantasies of work, I would wear a suit and spend all day sitting in conference rooms discussing the next big thing, or the latest problem.
Included in that would be lots of air travel to big cities in the U.S. and maybe even abroad. I’d say things like, “Oh, I can’t be there on Monday, I’ll be in Spain.” or walk into my office and tell my assistant “Hold all of my calls, I have something urgent that must be done.” Of course there would be a company car, expense account, the works, so to speak. I would come home with a loosened tie, and plop down on the couch and talk about what a beast the day had been.
I’ve learned a few things since that time frame. One of them is that meetings usually tend to be a total waste of time! Not all of them, some of them can be productive, but usually a meeting is just a way to get a bunch of people together to discuss things that everybody already knows, but wants to make sure we discuss anyway. Secondly, the life of corporate airfare cannot be that great! Last year I went to a conference in Seattle, so obviously I had to take a plane. I’ve taken a few short plane rides during my time here, from Savannah to D.C., from Macon to Shreveport, nothing really major. From Savannah to Seattle took ages! I was so exhausted after the flight that I am not really sure I would have been able to do any amount of real thought.
The only draw to those trips was that I got to travel and see things I normally wouldn’t be able to. Flying into Seattle, and staying in a hotel in downtown, or staying at a resort on the border of Canada, watching boats drift in the bay. Spending time in D.C., walking through the underground mall at Crystal City, viewing Arlington on that cold, dreary day. Really all that awakened in me was the desire to travel, to see things and places.
I’m not sure, maybe one day I’ll have a job like I described, where I travel a lot, and see lots of different things. But right now I’m very content sleeping in my own bed and being able to see my friends on a regular basis. I just wish I could see certain other people on a regular basis.
Read this, and more, at Synaptic Thought.
