Chaos or a Universal Plan?

Ever wonder how people end up in the job they end up in?  I don't mean, necessarily, the unskilled workers who just find a job doing whatever they can find, but the professionals who choose unlikely career paths or specialities. 

This is a meaningless blog.  Just something I was pondering as I was reading an article about podiatry.  Really?  Podiatry?  What makes someone choose that specialty?  As a child was he just sitting around thinking of his future and envisioned feet?  Was he the worse in his class at med school or maybe the best?  Did he have a financial incentive?  I just can't imagine.  I mean, it took effort to end up in that field, it doesn't just happen. 

As a child most of us want to be teachers or doctors or firemen or police.  Maybe a veterinarian or a scientist as we get older.  But not very many of us end up in those positions.  Either we change our mind after finding out there is no money in those fields, or we find another interest, or life just happens to us.

I was an unfocused teenager.  Very good at school, but so good that it bored the quest for education right out of me.  I had ideas of what I would like to do (photojournalism), but no real plan to get there.  Finally I had no money for college and nobody pushing me to find a way, no counsellor explaining how financial aid works.  Nobody in my family had ever gone to college and it didn't seem like an option to me.  So I drifted for awhile and accidentally ended up in the Air Force.  Being in the military wasn't number 1, 2 or even 100 on my list of things to do with my life.  It just happened.  It had to do with a guy; seems like everything did back then.  

I had a very interesting career and life in the military.  I had a job I enjoyed in the Intelligence field; I got to travel and live in other countries; I got a Master's Degree without any student debt; I retired young with benefits, but young enough to start a second career.  I can't complain.  Not everyone winds up so lucky.  I'm pretty sure it is better to have a plan.  I don't think my children ever really considered that going to college was optional.  I didn't really give them that choice; it was just expected.  I love that my son is pursuing art though.  What a great career if you can make it.  And there is nobody telling him he can't make it, so I'm sure he will succeed. 

Somehow I feel like everyone should be able to live out their dream job, but yet that isn't possible is it?  Not every little girl can grow up to be a ballerina or a princess.  Somebody has to be a nurse or a receptionist or a bookkeeper or a construction worker or an office manager.  That is what I am now.  It is not my dream job.  It is a very good job though.  I suspect someday I will regret that I never really let go of the security of a good job in order to chase the dream; but a woman has bills to pay, right?

So back to the original question; how does someone wind up as a podiatrist, a dentist, a tax lawyer, a finance officer, an insurance adjuster, an actuary?  And how does a community generally end up with the appropriate number of the necessary skill sets?  Where does that balance come from?  Does the universe guide the number of High School dropouts vs. the doctoral students vs. the students who choose the trades?  Is it random chaos?  Will we someday run out of plumbers?

I don't know the answer.  Just pondering how life works.

Disclaimer:  All of the feet used in the production of this blog are my own; copyrighted for use by myself for my private use of walking and occasional jogging.  No feet were harmed in the production of this blog.