Few of us imagine what our lives really hold in store for us—as we look back at where we’ve come, the path we imagined we might follow years before rarely has our footprints on it. And in the process of looking back, we might be surprised to see the path that our footprints did take. Choices, circumstances, historical events, and simple cases of being at the right place at the right time often define our life’s roadmap. And yet, what those choices and circumstances lead to has more to do with personality and dedication to cause than with random events creating detours in what we believed to be our charted path.

–From the Introduction (as written by Melissa Clark Vickers) to Passionate Journey—My Unexpected Life, by Marian Leonard Tompson, with Melissa Clark Vickers 

Try something with me…. Instead of looking ahead to where you are heading next, turn around and look where you’ve come. How did you get to this point in time and space? Was it following a path you’d planned years ago, or did your actual path diverge? Are you doing with your life what you imagined you’d be doing when you were young and pondering “What will I be when I grow up?”

I decided early that I would be a teacher, and I did teach high school for five years. And then I had babies, discovered breastfeeding and La Leche League (LLL), and became an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC).* I was still teaching—not in a classroom, but in mothers’ homes. And I’d added something else to my life, just as unexpected (to me) as becoming a mother-to-mother breastfeeding supporter: writing. And THAT has led to even more surprising opportunities.

My career path was no longer linear, neatly mapped out by college degrees and traditional job settings. My new path began to resemble the frog that happily jumps from one lily pad to the next, combining opportunity with a little faith that the pad will hold her up and point her to the next interesting pad. My “lily pads” were not all breastfeeding-related but most seemed to be in the “child and family well-being” pond. I enjoyed each lily pad I was on and wasn’t necessarily looking for the next better lily pad to float by. But I wasn’t afraid to make a leap if something new came along.

Okay, there were multiple times that immediately after making such a leap that I wondered what possessed me to leave the security of the previous pad. But, with rare exception, after that momentary doubt had passed, I was glad to have taken a chance on yet another lily pad.

I’m not alone in this business of lily pad hopping. Gone are the days (for the most part) that someone starts his or her career with one job, one company, and then retires 50 years later with an engraved gold watch. Why is that? Maybe because there are more opportunities today than there used to be. Or maybe companies don’t last as long as they used to. Or maybe times have just changed and we don’t define ourselves by our job titles any more.

In some ways, just being a married female gave me more freedom to consider such changes. My husband had a steady job that paid well enough, and so I was a little freer to explore new territory. That even included taking time off to be a fulltime stay-at-home mom when my kids were little. I’m thankful that Bob was willing to go along with my periodic leaps to new lily pads, and he, too, felt it was important that I be home with our kids.

Sometimes, a leap to a new lily pad happens because of a connection to someone willing to guide both the leap and the landing. And some leaps happen because of a lack of opportunity combined with the need to do something. That was how I got into data collecting for the National Early Head Start Research Study—I needed to bring in some income and happened to see the ad in the paper. Living in the rural area that we do, the want ads rarely have anything in them that match either my interests or my experience, but this one at least had to do with child well-being, and it intrigued me.

Many of my breastfeeding supporter friends have done their own lily pad leaping, and found their passion in helping other mothers experience what they did. And most of the people I work with now at Family Voices, a national advocacy organization for families with children with special health care needs, came to this work through personal experience and passion.

It’s not just women who make these leaps. My husband has made a few leaps in his life, leaving behind the computer programming job he earned his college degree in. Our financial planner got his start playing guitar for a well-known country singer before realizing his passion was on a different lily pad.

We all have lily pads floating by us enticing us to consider a leap of faith that the change is worth the initial upheaval. Sometimes we know what lily pad we’d like to see float by but must wait for—or create—the right time to make that leap. Lily pads don’t have to be random!

Rare is the individual who is truly stuck in one position, one career, one charted path. Some have more lily pads to choose from, and some pads are better than others. Not all lily pads that float by deserve our attention, let alone really provide satisfaction. Throwing caution to the wind is as silly as letting caution paralyze us into staying put. 

What about you? What lily pads have you taken a chance on? Who were your guides? How might your life be different if you hop on that lily pad just ahead?

*I’m no longer an IBCLC, after choosing to let my certification lapse in 2013. http://www.melissaclarkvickers.com/?p=172

[Note: This post was adapted from a blog I wrote for the International Lactation Consultant Association’s Lactation Matters blog, “Making Connections: Serendipity + Opportunity + a Few Lily Pads,” posted August 16, 2012.  http://lactationmatters.org/2012/08/16/making-connections-serendipity-opportunity-a-few-lily-pads/ ]

© Melissa Clark Vickers 2015

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