Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Is It Too Late to Dream? - by Jeff Caliguire


My friend, Jeff Caliguire, in Chicago publishes a wonderful on-line column entitled, appropriately enough, "JeffCaliguire OnLine. In his recent article, Jeff cites a book by Dr. Paula Caligiuri entitled: "Get a Life: Not Just a Job." My eye was arrested by the wonderful line drawing of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. As you will see below, continuing to dream throughout one's lifetime need not be a quixotic enterprise.

Jeff quotes from the book:

"Paula Caligiuri writes, “There is a wide open space between ‘unattainable dream’ and ‘get serious career’ that should allow for plenty of room for creativity to fulfill the underlying motivations and abilities of why we held a certain dream. We just need to root our career dreams in the realities of our natural skills and abilities – and the probability that we can attain the career act.” (p. 58)

  • So, if you’re 48 and dread Sunday nights, and feel stuck…. why not do the work to dust off your real dreams? What do you have to lose? What might you gain?
  • If you’re 65, in decent health and have a vision to make a difference in India – what’s holding you back?
  • If you’re 80 and you have a vision to mentor teens, who says you “just don’t get it!”
I encourage you to read Jeff's article in full, linked below:

Is It Too Late to Dream?

Enjoy.

Al

2 comments:

popsicledeath said...

I'll definitely check out the link when I have a bit more time, thanks for posting it and the excerpt.

It's an interesting subject I deal with myself. As a dream-to-be writer, I struggle with the fact my dream has very little to do with a 'career' or 'making money.' I wish I had a dream job to chase, because that seems a luxury compared to just chasing a dream with very little liklihood of financial support, much less anything resembling a reward.

I like the idea of getting a life, not just a job. As a would-be writer, it seems the only way to get to the point the dream and job are one, requires many years of needing to pursue both separately.

But anyhow, I enjoy the blog (though it's often well over my pay grade on the human-capital scale), and thanks for this excerpt and link.

Paula Caligiuri said...

Thank you for including the reference to 'Get a Life, Not a Job". With a far greater use of the contingent workforce and the changes in the psychological contract so much has changed in today's employment reality. Great careers are now far more self-directed and self-created. I appreciate you helping to the message out.