Look how far I've come

Was watching House and Scrubs the other day and it had me thinking about my life. Now I am not a doctor and my work deals in no way what so ever with the medical world (except for occasionally videotaping a person going to a medical appointment) but there was the briefest of times (I'm talking Planck length time span here) where I was actually heading towards that direction. My family had great and high hopes that I would be the first doctor in the family and go on to achieve great fortune and success...

Yeah that didn't turn out to well...

Despite the assurance of my family that I could pursue any career I wanted, I still knew that deep down inside they were saddened when I chose to deviate from their set plan. It's just that gut feeling I got when I went to the family functions immediately after the bomb shell. Don't get me wrong...the love was still there but there was something palpable there beneath the surface.

My ideal career was to have something with meaning that would help people. Individuals and communities alike. Something noble. I'm currently working as a private investigator checking out workers compensation claims. Ok it's not the most noble of jobs I know but I try to look at the big picture and how I'm helping people through what I do. I'm out there sweating it out in a van to bust people who are trying to abuse the system and bleed money from other hard working people. Through our (PI's) work, we try hard to keep insurance and health care costs down by catching those who would try and cheat the system.

When you look at it like that, the work can sound pretty noble right? By keeping that mind set, it makes my job a little easier and a lot more rewarding. Not everyone can wake up at 4 in the morning to drive 2 hours to a case, sit in a hot van with no AC for 8 hours and only get 2 minutes of tape as the person walks down their driveway to get the mail and bend over to pick up a box. It's not a glamorous life by far. The hours and long and the pay isn't that great (low hourly offset by triple digit hours of work a pay period) but it's something that needs to be done.

After coming to this realization, I cracked open another beer, kicked my feet up and watched as Hugh Laurie insulted his staff and saved another life.

Cheers.