I don’t like little kids that much. Sure, they’re cute, smarter than they look and funny to listen to, but I’ve always wanted to hang out with the grownups ever since I was a little hell-raiser. That probably explains why I didn’t become a grade school teacher. That being said, when I was in college and seeking out my passions, I wound up in an internship at Massachusetts’ Executive Office of Elder Affairs in the Media Relations department. Here I learned more about public relations community development than I ever learned in the classroom at my college. I also learned that I loved working with the elderly and that working with them would be my career choice.

After graduating from college in 2006 I met a nasty, unwelcoming job market, much like the one recent graduates are facing this year. It took me about six months to find a “real job” that paid more than $10 an hour and wasn’t temporary. On the verge of financial collapse, I finally got a call to work for an elder housing non-profit in Boston where I eventually got hired to do program development for the residents. I was thrilled and ready to go into my work cave and be really successful at my job. However, success never came in that job. It’s the first real job I’ve ever had that I failed at. Not because I was bad at working with the elderly, whom I thought to be storied, hilarious and amazing people. No, the reason I failed at that job was because of my inability to adapt to the working environment. I was the youngest person there, by far and the only male in a sea of women social workers, financiers, former teachers, fundraisers, etc…

I lasted about 9 months before my boss politely told me that I should seek employment elsewhere and kindly told me I wasn’t being fired and that I had as much time as I needed to get out and find something new. I was hurt and frustrated because I felt like I wasn’t being given enough time to really get down and dirty with the ideas I had about my job. I was planning on attending graduate school for geriatrics and public policy in the coming year too. I was bitter that I had people telling me what I should be doing rather than taking my good will at face value and letting me figure out a way to put my ideas into action.

So, I left the non-profit world and wound up in a social media analytics software company in Boston and eventually at Brazen Careerist in Madison, WI where I reside today. I really do love my job these days- social media is new and interesting to me and I enjoy knowing that people are bettering themselves through our website and getting jobs as well. However, I still love elderly folks. Since leaving the elder-care non-profit two plus years ago I’ve gone back many times to help volunteer, serve meals in their kitchen, set up parties and lift heavy objects (the ladies there thought I was a dumb brute sometimes, but loved that I could lift things like a brute too). Every time I went back there, I reminded myself that leaving was in fact a good thing, because I learned on two fronts- 1) I wasn’t doing a great job at my job and everyone knew it except me at the time. I wasn’t motivated by my working environment nor the non-profit that I worked for. I was wasting time badly by staying there out of comfort. 2) I left and still love the idea of working with elderly people. I still want to do this for a living someday, to some extent. I’m not sure how right now, but its part of the cornucopia of career goals I have for myself… none of which I have ever claimed to be linear

What I think readers can get from my story regarding how to Be The Change in the world is this:

• Others can tell you when you’re good at a task or succeeding at prescribed mission, however the metrics within your soul for where you’re at in accomplishing a goal or turning the corner on understanding a concept are known only to you. It’s good to take other people’s input into consideration, but don’t ever let anyone tell you what you should be doing with your life.
• Changing careers is not as hard as people make it out to be. You can come in and out of most industries with little to no resistance as long as you’re smart about your timing and your intentions. You really can’t take away skills learned and passions acquired.
• When dealing with your life’s calling, don’t expect to know what it is or how you’re going to make it happen the second you get out of college. For all intents and purposes, you’re still a kid. Hell, I’m 25 and I’m still a kid in many aspects of how I view the world. To be honest, I hope to be part kid forever! That way I’ll never live my life out of the invisible obligations that adults do.

The world does not have enough people who choose to shape their career around their passions and just because they don’t fit a personality profile of what an organization thinks it needs should not mean people that a person cannot find a place to be productive and do meaningful work in what they care about.

Do I regret not fighting harder to stay at the non-profit I was working at or maybe find another job doing something slightly different but still with the elderly? Yes, sometimes I do. But, here I am today and I’m proud of the progress I’ve made in my career and I have a feeling that somehow, someway the skills I’ve picked up along the way as well as the understanding of the world through my own eyes will bring a lot of good to people, young and old someday.

I hope that each of you find your passion and your calling. Even if it’s all uphill from here, don’t take your eyes off it and don’t back down when other’s tell you how hard it’s going to be to get there.

The Changemaker

JR Moreau resides in Madison, Wisconsin, hailing from Worcester and Boston, Massachusetts. He currently works as Brazen Careerist’s Community Editor. He spends his spare time listening to hip-hop, reading dense literature, Tweeting with a diverse group of folks, plotting the great takeover, and talking strangers ears off about MMA and social media. You can find his writing on his personal blog, JR’s Not-So-Literal Blog and you can follow him on Twitter @JRMoreau!