Spring Fever

Occasionally, okay, fairly regularly
I drive myself a little crazy
trying to figure out what I'm going to be
when I grow up.
The whole hospice chaplaincy thing
is great, I love it, it's going well....
but I worry about the long term.
Do I want to do this for the next 25 years?
Will there still be a job
around the corner
as the health care system as we know it
collapses?
Will they continue to fund chaplaincy
as reimbursement shrinks and shrinks?
This week I decided I would become
a physical therapist.
All my favorite things...
job security,
interaction with the elderly,
a helping profession,
comfortable shoes,
lots of science courses,
and a really decent salary.
Oy, but the classes I would have to take,
even to get into the program!
Who has the time or money?
Anatomy and physiology and such
are not generally available
as night classes.

Then I get into the justice issue
of all that time and money,
spent on myself,
when there are women right now
in Africa standing around dry, empty pools
contemplating the death of their families
because they have to wait three days
for another relief truck full of water.
How can I justify collecting degrees
when there are such profound needs in the world?

It is so hard to know
what the responsible thing is...
so hard to know what the vocational thing is.
There are times when,
as much as I feel like I help people,
I feel like I'm wasting
all sorts of God given talents.
The inner scientist in me
gets frustrated.
Should I take the hard road now,
or stay on the path I'm on
and just see where it goes?

Is this age appropriate crap?
If I go back to school for anything,
now seems like the time.
It just seems so impossible.