The Courageous Uncareered

There was a time when I thought that my father was secretly disappointed that none of his three children had careers. Not that he would ever be disappointed in us (because he’s not that kind of person at all), just sad that none of us were involved in anything that resembled an actual career. He got his own civil engineering job straight out of graduate school and he’s been working for the same company ever since. I talked to him about it once, about whether he was disappointed that our lives weren’t as steady as his. I told him that I simply couldn’t imagine what it’s like to work at the same job for so long.
Then my dad said something that surprised me. He told me that he respected us and he wished he had had our courage when he was younger. He said he had taken the safest route – not wanting to risk anything. He said he admired my brother for choosing a lifestyle of spotty employment in the pursuit of a writing career. He said he envied my brother's courage.
That totally caught me off-guard. I hadn't expected that to be his perspective.
It’s funny how you can assume things about a person, how they view things in general or how they view you specifically, and then you find out you’re totally off the mark. In my experience, sometimes all it takes is one single conversation to start to really understand a person.