The other day I sat in the dentist chair preparing myself for a tooth extraction. As he gathered his instruments of torture, I asked the dentist what made him want to study dentistry. He told me he didn’t start out wanting to be a dentist; he began with Commerce/Law but dropped it after a year because it was boring. He told me about his three semesters of a degree in Microbiology, one semester in Radiography and one in Arts before dropping out altogether.
After a year of working odd jobs and weighing up the odds for future endeavours, he decided on dentistry because “people will always have teeth and I like doing stuff with my hands. I was one of those kids who was always pulling stuff apart just so I could put it back together… now open wide.”
I pondered the irony of this last statement as he began injecting anaesthetic into my gum. I think perhaps I should stop questioning people about their ‘vocations’.
Some time ago I had cause to consult a Podiatrist. And as he began work on my foot, I asked him what made him want to do Podiatry and he said “because I failed my physiotherapy exams.”
I wonder how many people actually have a true calling, and how many people just ‘fall’ into their career path?
City Observationist 