Many of us spend years in college or training for chosen profession. We may then feel that we may be limited to that chosen profession. But it had been some wonderful examples of people moving from one profession to another who have become very successful. Thus I have chosen the theme broadening our chosen task. I hope the following ideas can be of use to youth ministries, family counselors, family devotionals and family home evenings.
It is not only in education that we need to not limit our potential. There’s a president I have respected that spent many years in a career an actor. Then later he moved to politics and was successful as President of United States. I thought President Reagan added a lot of wonderful contributions to the country.
Here is another example. There was technical support engineer who I worked with at a major technology corporation. He was very good in his chosen career, but I found out that he was also very good at woodcraft. So he did not limit his talents to only technical support.
My invitation is that we don’t have to have a degree to be good at something. There are many successful writers who are non-English majors. There are many successful musicians who have been self-taught. This is just an invitation for us to realize that we can accomplish multiple tasks, even though we may devote a lot of our energy to one career. People often successfully jump from one career to another.
Another invitation I have is that for us to not make an interpretation of someone not be in highly intelligent, because of their chosen career. While going to college, I worked part-time as a custodian. There is one particular supervisor who I found to be very intelligent and had excellent common sense. I came to respect his intellect.
Object lesson: sprinkler head.
Get a empty, clean milk jug and poke holes in the lid. Fill the jug with water and use it to water a plant. By having multiple holes in the lid, you notice that the water can cover a wider area of dirt. We can compare this to each of us having multiple talents. We may concentrate our energies for a chosen career but then fine we can do more than just a certain job. We possess talents and abilities that would make great contributions to other fields. For example, we can be well informed community citizens through study and observation. There are multiple examples of people who have had a variety of successful careers.
Maybe discuss with the class and family. Each person possesses individual and natural talents that can be used in a variety of ways. Have people brainstorm on how members of the class or family can excel in multiple tasks.
If you have ideas to contribute to this concept, please feel free to share in the comment section of this blog. Thanks.
