David Theus

I have just finished reading - in my opinion - one of the web’s top five blogger’s, Penelope Trunk of www.penelopetrunk.com. She claims to be a Brazen Careerist, basically a self appointed guru on generations X and Y. I find myself dropping by her site often just to try and keep up to date with what it is these young people are doing. My interest is partially driven by the fact that I have a 20 year old in college and his mother and I are still trying to figure out what makes him and fellow members of his generation tick.

In a recent blog, Penelope gives her readers an inside look into the woes and difficulties associated with her exploding career and the roles reversed with her husband being a stay at home Dad caring for their young autistic child. I thought it was an honest portrayal and full of truths that haunt many of us in today’s workplace and more importantly what I like to call our core relationships.

The world we live in has changed drastically! When I look back at the days of my parents and see where we have come in only forty or so years, it’s frightening and exciting all rolled into one. My father graduated from college and basically worked a couple jobs in his field prior to being recognized and recruited to work the remainder of his life for one firm. I can remember always being provided for, but saying to myself I will never give all of my life to one company like he did.

Now in my mid-forties, I guess I’m somewhat of a tweaner as it were. I’m really at the end of the baby boomers, but I still consider myself young enough to want some of the similar things that these current generations are clamoring for. The key is time. I worked my tail off from the time I was in college till 90 days after the Twin Towers came down. I was part of that group of management that had worked our way to the top and just as those towers collapsed, so did our careers. The good news, I was fortunate enough to have purchased an abundance of stock in the company and in the end received a very lucrative incentive to go away.

After what seems like almost five years of sulking and being bitter at everyone from the terrorist themselves to the newscasters that deliver the daily news, I am experiencing what we called in the good old days, a paradigm shift, at least one in my life that is. I’m excited about what it is I’m doing and I am encouraged about getting better at it. I’m not making a lot of money, but it seems like it is not so far away, maybe just around the next bend in the road as it were.

I wonder if what my friend Penelope and her husband are experiencing is what my wife and I experienced over these last 5 years. I heard someone once say that our lives are a series of seasons. Each section or portion of our childhood and adulthood is filled with these seasons that are made up of a multitude of happenings and goings on that none of

us seem to have much control over. I seem to be coming into a much needed change of season in my life, and I would hope that Penelope and her husband have the staying power to ride theirs out to the other side.

I guess the moral of the story if indeed there is one, there has to be a balance. Just as many of us have done all over this land, we have downsized, moved to the country in record numbers, and taken on less conventional career paths. The one thing that hasn’t changed is us. We are still the same driven professionals we were before - it’s just taken a little more time to reinvent ourselves. Once we find our new niche look out, now we are going to run with that new direction, just like we did before in our previous line of work.

So back to the moral, balance, how much money is enough? Do we have to drive the latest and greatest automobile? Are there ways we can structure our lives so that the people that are most important to us stick around? At what point are our kids nanny’s spending more time with our children versus spending time with us, their parents? To my friend Penelope, I love your work, but take some time off and evaluate where it is you and your husband would like to see this relationship end up. Penelope, I wish you and your husband the best of luck in the future, some things are worth saving.