Hmmm, what is my niche?:
I’m pretty darn good at breathing
My pulse is also a strength, haven’t missed a beat in years
I might be stretching for this one, but I’ve been a US citizen my entire life, no breaks, gaps or issues
If I don’t figure it out, either one of those things would be a solid backup
That’s too bad. A good therapist might have helped you overcome your unhealthy obsession with the sea and your boat hoarding.
I don’t go to work for fun; not even close! I go to work because they pay me. If they stopped paying me, I’d walk out in an instant.
The work has its moments, and is reasonably fulfilling in its way (besides the “in the pocketbook” way, I mean), but it’s not fun. And I don’t expect it to be, and think that expecting work to be fun is actually self-destructive. Your life can be perfectly fine if you’re merely okay with your job, and you should never expect to be able to find somebody to pay to play around. If you think you’ll never be satsfied without being paid to play then there’s an extremely high chance that you’ll never be satisfied.
I’ve got five or six hobbies, and bounce around between them freely. And that’s fine - none of them are my ‘niche’. I have a work ‘niche’, because its valuable to specialize in your work, but when it comes to having fun there’s no need or benefit to limiting yourself - if you like something, you like it, and you can like other things too.
I have. And it was just as you phrase it. I have found it, and it became an inherent part of my identity.
I didn’t know this would be it when I was a child. As late as high school I thought I wanted to become a Spanish teacher.
Now I am a physicist working in industry. It feels more like tinkering than anything else, but within “tinkering” I include a variety of fancy sounding things that look impressive in presentations. I did have a technical aptitude even when I was only around 6 years old, and always liked it, but it wasn’t until around the time I graduated high school that I chose physics.
I also do a lot of stuff in corporate diversity, stuff that meanders around the edges of the human resources department in most companies. This has been for about the last 8 years. I really like it. Perhaps this describes two niches, but these are components of one paying gig, so perhaps this describes one.
It was a huge help that I was born white and male in a pleasant suburb of a city in the mid-Atlantic US. I don’t like this, and am doing my small part to help change it, but it’s certainly part of my story, like it or not. I was also lucky that my technical interests tend to align with well paying jobs. I don’t assume that niche has to equal career. The fact that they coincide for me makes my existence more pleasant, but that’s nothing I earned. Well, maybe I earned it partly, because I have often trained myself to grow in ways that somebody wants to pay for, and not just toward what looked most interesting or fun. I always want to help people find that pleasant coincidence for themselves if it’s possible.
That “Unhealthy Obsession” has allowed me to retire early with no financial worries. To have a summer home in Maine, a winter home in Florida, and a little down island getaway in Saint Lucia. But most importantly a large group of friends who love nothing more than to go sailing with me.
Also, from Sept. 2006 to Feb. 2010 I sailed all the way around this big blue marble we live on. The meeting with and gaining an understanding of so many various and diverse cultures gave me a perspective on humankind that few get to have. I am very grateful for that.
mssmith537, I don’t if your response was snark, sarcasm, or jealousy. Want to go for a boat ride? It just might cure what ails you.
Dumb question for you, I spent the first 20 years of my adult life going out to sea fishing on a regular basis and never got sea sick. The next 20 years only a couple of outings. Now I am finding I get sea sick every time I go out. Even in mild seas, the rolling motion hits me within minutes. Does this tend to go away with time at sea?
There are no dumb questions.
Most people seem to get acclimated after a day or two but it is shere torture for that time. If there is an underling medical issue such as some inner ear or equilibrium problem it does’t go away.
I’ve the opposite happen to me, land sickness, especially after a rough trip. The first few hours of being on shore, everything is still moving.
I have experienced the land sickness where everything is still rocking. I suspect I do have some inner ear issues now, I know I have had a considerable hearing loss in the last few years.
mssmith537, I don’t if your response was snark, sarcasm, or jealousy. Want to go for a boat ride? It just might cure what ails you.
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For what it’s worth, I took it as a joke. Nothing negative at all implied. 