Accountant/poet/writer? That's the 'slash effect' of your career

By Diane Dennis

Lifestyles Northwest, Jun 4, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Visit Diane Dennis’ Web site at www.lifetransitionguide.com or e-mail dianeden@centurytel.net. She appears on “AM Northwest” discussing life transitions.

At the onset of your chosen career path, the future looks rosy as you focus on the positive, most likely unaware of the negatives. Years later you’ve had it up to here. By the time you reach your middle years, chances are your job has left you burned out from too much stress, not enough exercise, and the rubber on your tolerance level is worn thin.

Before we can’t get up from the mat it is time to stop, look, listen and do a reassessment of our careers and definition of happiness.

For many, this begins a re-tooling of our lives, offering a chance at creating a second adulthood while we are still young – young being in the eyes of the beholder. For me, old age is anything 20 years older than I am in any given year. Pretty smart, don’t you think? Do the math my way, and you will never be old!

For some of us, a career life transition may be due to unpredictable circumstances. Vicki Pierce-Quennville was a successful executive at Intel. When one of her children developed a health problem, she took a year off, fully intending to heal her child and return to her job. Something completely different happened.

“The experience healed me and led me to ask some life altering questions,” she explains.

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