What do you want to be?!

I spent my entire adult life working in management, was I destined to be a manager all of my life?! I don’t know and no body else knows but that is what it is and that is where it stands right now.

But is it possible that at a time when I’m nearing my retirement age still doesn’t know what I really want to be!! I guess by now at this advanced stage in my life it is almost too late to even think about what I want to be.

When I was a kid I thought that I wanted to be a pilot, a lawyer, a journalist, a career diplomat, however, it didn’t happen and I’m still thinking about what I want to do for the rest of my life.

Some of you may wonder what at this stage in life prompted that line of thinking in me. I tell what it is; it is the new kitchen that I have installed/ remodeled in my house few months ago. Still, what the heck is the relationship between a newly remodeled kitchen and my career path?!

Well, it is the art of carpentry itself that I’m interested in addressing for this purpose. It all started when through friend of mine I met this carpenter called Abu Alaa, which in turn convinced me to remodel my kitchen. The idea appealed to me because he told that all we need to do is buy wood, and from the wood he will be able to manufacture a complete ready to use kitchen on his own.

I have always thought that when someone needs a new kitchen all they would have to do is go to one of those places that sell ready kitchens, buy it, and then hire someone to install it for them.

It wasn’t that way with Abu Alaa, he makes everything himself from raw wood, he sands the wood, measures it, saws it, carves it, paints it, and then sculpts it together into shapes using nails and glue. Three weeks later the finished product is a kitchen; it is that simple for him.

In the three weeks that I spent with him putting together a beautiful kitchen from scratch taught me a lot about my self, about the carpentry profession, and about the manual work that the blue color people do.

I was there all day every day when the wood gets purchased from the factory, when the wood gets loaded on the truck, transported to my house, and finally unloaded in my kitchen.

I helped Abu Alaa in every step in the way, I handed him the tool that he needed while he was nailing in a precarious position, I measured with him, and I carved, sanded, and lifted and sawed.

I ate both my breakfast and lunch with him, we drank tea all day long, and at the end of the day I drove him back home to his family house. I tremendously enjoyed doing the manual work with this man; I have never felt more relaxed more at ease the way I felt during those three weeks.

I discovered that perhaps I was meant to be someone that should be working in manual labor rather than working with his mind all the time. I found that manual labor gives me the feeling of serenity, a feeling of placidness that never existed in me throughout my life.

Will I be switching my career? I don’t think so I’m just wondering if God had made me someone that should be doing manual labor but some how Instead was sucked into this management career and didn’t permit myself to think about anything else since the pay was comfortable and authority and prestige that comes with it blinded me from seeking an alternative.