A Mid-Career Professional Takes a Lesson from a 25-year-old Ballet Dancer

Karen Thompkins
Sep 1, 2018 · 5 min read
Photo Credit: thestocks.im

When I decided to conduct interviews for my book project, my goal was to have as to have many perspectives as possible from young people making their way out into the real world. I wanted to talk to all kinds of people — men and women of different backgrounds, working in a variety of professions, ranging from 25–35 years in age.

From these perspectives, I am telling the story of what it means to be a young person living a real life in today’s world — not the life projected on social media or even what we have projected upon them. I prefer to describe this group as young people. Clearly, the word millennial is more than an age category of those entering into adulthood in the early 21st century.

While I am documenting their experiences, I’m also learning. I anticipated that I would gain new information simply from encountering new people of diverse voices coming from another generation. There is much for me to learn about the contemporary experiences of young people. I had not thought of using this information to inform my own life until I encountered a 25-year-old professional ballet dancer.

Like most professional dancers, Miles has been dancing most of his life. In the next seven years, Miles says that he will reach the height of his physical ability as a dancer. While there are exceptions, the career of a ballet dancer is short and filled with uncertainty. There’s the looming threat of injury that can put a dancer down for a stretch of time, or even end a career.

Miles lives with uncertainty. While transitioning from a school setting into a professional setting, his feelings of uncertainty only increased:

You don’t know where you’re going to get the job… how you’re going to make money. You don’t know anything. When you finally find something, you don’t know if you’re going to continue to do it the next day or the next hour. You don’t know what’s going to happen. There’s always this edge of uncertainty the whole time in the career. — Miles

Miles embraces uncertainty. This is not to say that he has warm and fuzzy feelings about it. He accepts the uncertainty that comes with his profession and characteristic of this stage of his life. While ballet is an all-consuming profession, he continues to take small steps towards planning his next career.

Older generations have been there. While we miss the boundless energy and enthusiasm of our youth, we don’t miss the unknowingness of our younger years. Transitioning into adulthood was no easy task. We discovered what works for us and what doesn’t. We became more practical in our choices and expectations. We also gained confidence — confidence that comes with time and experience.

Generations that precede millennials can be lulled into a false sense of security, especially when it comes to our work. We invested in training and education to build a foundation from which to launch a career. Over the years we worked steadily — often in the same position or career for stretches of time and sometimes climbing onward and upward to higher positions and higher pay. We gain more experience and knowledge with the expectation that we are increasing our job security. We are more likely to believe as work experience increase, risk and uncertainty decrease.

This approach may not lead to job satisfaction. Mid-career professionals may even feel regret when they look back on their career path and life choices. Nonetheless— we’ve shown up day after day over the course of many years. Shouldn’t we at least reap the reward of job security?

But uncertainty is more real than certainty. We may be setting ourselves up. Liz Ryan, a Forbes contributor writes about the workplace and how to reinvent yourself. I found two interesting articles she wrote in 2016 and more recently in 2018 about job security. In both, she is sounding the alarm to wake us up from our mid-career slumber.

Only in the past sixty years have we marched into glass-and-chrome buildings and expected our employers to manage our careers and look after our livelihoods. It was a bubble, the bubble of lifelong employment — and the bubble has burst. We are back to looking after ourselves again. — Liz Ryan, The Secret to Job Security

Liz has 10 great tips on how we should approach employment and career in today’s market. The best way to sum it up is when she says, “We are all entrepreneurs now. It doesn’t matter if you are in business for yourself or work for a government agency.”

This brings me back to Miles, the ballet dancer. He said something that sent me down this path that led me to Liz’s articles, rethinking my career strategy and this very piece.

I’m more into it (ballet) for the art aspect. I’m interested in a lot of arts other than ballet, and it’s the current form of expression that I’m doing professionally. My hope is to keep transitioning and finding a new career path. — Miles

Miles’ philosophy can be unpackaged in many meaningful ways. The work we are doing now is just one expression of who we are at this moment in time. If we can see our work in this way then we don’t have to be held hostage by our work and deeply impacted by workplace shenanigans.

Secondly, as we work, we should see ourselves as continually transitioning and transforming. One of the most effective ways to transform in the job market is to develop skills that solves problems. This is one of the tips that Liz gives in her article. She has many more that will help us to grow and develop whether we decide to stay in a current position or move on to another job opportunity.

This approach is consistent with Liz’s recommendation to see ourselves as entrepreneurs because that is what entrepreneurs do — they keep transitioning and finding new career paths.

Karen Thompkins

Written by

Life is a mystery and the world a beautiful and complex place. So I write to make my way through it.

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