Member-only story
I Miss Being A Workaholic?
Hi, my name is Lara, and I’m a former workaholic. I think.
I can’t begin to tell you how many days of my life have been spent (in their entirety) in front of a computer. By that, I mean I haven’t worked in the same room with anyone else since 2004. So working from home, being essentially self-employed, has been what I do.
And it made it difficult to do anything but work.
I grew up the child of entrepreneurs.
My dad's first two careers were owning an auto parts distribution business and then owning a travel agency. He was my age now when he went to work for the local sheriff’s department as a dispatcher. 20 years later, he retired with a pension and went to work as a security guard. It wasn’t until he had a stroke at 69 that he stopped working entirely and he’s now bored out of his mind most days.
My mother had been in retail management for an extended period of my early life. Then she spent a decade running her own interior design business before returning to retail. She was in her early 60s when she left and was lucky to pursue her dream career of teaching art.
Me? I had planned my entire life to become a conservationist and animal behaviorist. Yep, think Dian Fossey or Jane Goodall. Life didn’t work out that way (long story but…
