These days, I need a very strong connection to what I’m doing. I’m too old to waste my time on trivialities. But in the past, I always had a passion for learning new things. While others at work complained about having to learn a new system or method for a particular job, I embraced it. If anything even remotely suggested a way to improve what I was doing, I’d research it and teach myself. I worked in computer graphics for 11 years. When I first got hired, I had never touched Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, or any other graphics-driven computer program. I had taken an advertising design course at Lindsey Hopkins Education Center, back when logos were hand-penned with India ink and sign lettering was a handcrafted art. Illustrations were also done by hand; I was good at pen-and-ink illustrations. Cartoons were hand-drawn and colored on acrylic cells. I took that course when I was only 16. I got hired as a full-time Post Office clerk at 17, with a new learning experience. I had to memorize all the addresses in each postal zone so I could sort the mail by hand (no machines in those days) to the appropriate mail carrier. I quickly learned all 4 postal zones: 33020, 33021, 33023, 33024. At the time, we had to learn these on our own without compensation. I never got to use my Advertising Art skills until 30 years later, when I retired from the Post Office at 48.
Still relatively young, I decided to try to find a job in Graphic Design. As I said, I had no computer skills, just a few samples of my self-taught artwork in a large portfolio folder. I walked into my interview with a big smile and a positive attitude, and I was hired on the spot. The first project I was handed was a high-end brochure for a spa. After figuring out how to turn on the computer, I plunged into the deep end, taught myself Photoshop, and completed the project in record time! At age 59, the newspaper company decided to outsource the work to India. Although I was still working, I decided on a backup plan: I went to nursing school for my LPN license and graduated at age 60. I worked as a pediatric home care nurse for medically fragile children. Now, at 69, I am fully retired, but I decided to try my hand at writing and have been teaching myself by reading books on short-story writing. I just started an online Creative Writing college course. Let’s see where that takes me.
GrowingOlderHopeWiser 
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