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I'm going to be completely honest here - the story hits the nail on the head for me. I was a mechanic in my younger years. I was content. I was lower middle

by deaps 8y ago

I'm going to be completely honest here - the story hits the nail on the head for me. I was a mechanic in my younger years. I was content. I was lower middle class, but I didn't care. Yeah, it was dirty, it was tiring, it was hard on the body, but it was rewarding. Once we had our first child, I refocused on a long-lost passion of mine and have been a network engineer for about seven years now...While I also love this job, and do find it rewarding, I got into cycling about six years ago. I've always realized that I upped the 'profitability' of my career by over four-fold - and I know that I did it for the sake of my son and my wife. But I never realized that cycling actually filled a gap that I left for myself. I'm completely fine with cycling filling that gap. My family lives a better life now, and I absolutely love cycling. The article definitely hit home with me - word after word, sentence after sentence, I can relate to the whole thing.

MarkLowenstein 8y ago
I'm very interested in that gap you refer to. Was there something you were used to as a mechanic that you weren't getting in your new career?
- deaps 8y ago
  I think in auto mechanics, I accomplished things each day. Many beginnings and many ends. There was the mental challenges, similar to what I face these days, but those things came to completion much more frequently. It was rewarding. Now my current job is absolutely rewarding as well. I’m actually recognized a lot for my troubleshooting ability, but normally a typical project from start to end could be four months - or more - if it includes a lot of documentation to pass off to an operations team. I definitely do more designing, documentation, and transitioning of those systems than I do troubleshooting, however these days. Keep in mind, I’m not complaining - just explaining. I love my job and am challenged. I think it just misses some of the more frequent gratifying completion of tasks (which cycling fills). Hope that explains a bit more.

by deaps 8y ago

MarkLowenstein 8y ago

I'm very interested in that gap you refer to. Was there something you were used to as a mechanic that you weren't getting in your new career?

deaps 8y ago
I think in auto mechanics, I accomplished things each day. Many beginnings and many ends. There was the mental challenges, similar to what I face these days, but those things came to completion much more frequently. It was rewarding. Now my current job is absolutely rewarding as well. I’m actually recognized a lot for my troubleshooting ability, but normally a typical project from start to end could be four months - or more - if it includes a lot of documentation to pass off to an operations team. I definitely do more designing, documentation, and transitioning of those systems than I do troubleshooting, however these days. Keep in mind, I’m not complaining - just explaining. I love my job and am challenged. I think it just misses some of the more frequent gratifying completion of tasks (which cycling fills). Hope that explains a bit more.