Future visions

Evert, when I was in school, my teachers all told me that I would and should "DO GREAT THINGS."

Well, I have. To my credit I have helped raised a teacher and a healer. I have been a part of one of the most productive and safest food supplies on the face of the earth. I have tended the earth, written about it and tried to walk carefully upon it so as not to leave very deep footprints.

I have not done things as my teachers thought I should, but I saw one not too long ago, and he told me that doing things my own way had allowed me to do so much more than if I had followed his advice.

My advice is to follow no one's advice, unless it is what you want to do anyway. But(here it comes), try very hard not to be a procrastinator. I plan to do this very thing any day now!

Evert, how about a fun article about your friends on DG? To someone not familiar with this site, it all sounds like such a crazy and fun place. I have been asked more than a few times by friends and family, "What's been happening on your garden site?" That's because I have sometimes involved others in my prayer list, or bummed plants or seeds for online gardener friends, or maybe just received a call from a member when I was among family and friends.

You could write about paper people and the opportunity they present for learning about other places. You could poke fun at the old ladies here who grab any opportunity to create an adventure where anything goes, and the wacky events that result. You could write about the attempts to identify plants we can't see, or the requests for starts of plants, or the problems of shipping plants. You could simply describe this virtual garden as if it was a real place, where people are always generous and happy to help, where members can come with any problem and find a sympathetic ear, where information is available to non-subscribers and help is abundant just for the asking, free of charge. You could analyze the reasons people are so drawn here, or pose the question of why this site has grown so fast and where it will end. You could even write a comparison of this and other sites.

Maybe you could use your special ability with computers to encourage others who might be less gifted. An article about using a computer if one knows absolutely nothing about computers is always useful. Offering to answer questions leads to more articles or maybe columns. Make up a sample and send it to your local newspaper. If they publish it, you can see where there is need for more by the responses.

That could be a fun idea, I could write about the Finnish gardening site at the same time :)

I agree.
write gardeningsites, seed and plant trading.....give some tips..............I´m sure that article would interested manys...

Botany Tech.

:)

This message was edited Sunday, Mar 23rd 8:33 PM

Ooohhh, boy, Evert, did you open a can of worms ;P

Sorry about the idiom.

A definite rule about planning your life before living it is that it will never turn out the way you planned.

In high school I applied for and was admitted to the pre-Veterinary Medicine program at our local University. I was required to take a course in Microbiology. That made me want to change the focus of my studies to get a PhD in Microbiology, and later get my Vet degree. That would have meant 10-12 years in University. After 4 1/2 years I had to leave school because of health reasons. In the meantime I had gotten several jobs, and because of a love of computers, got a job developing software applications for PCs (back in the very early days). I had only a little formal education in computers at the time, but learned as I went. I had to end my working life due to increasing health problems, and got involved in volunteer work, one of which is as an Herb garden volunteer, which gave me enough knowledge to actually garden in my own garden.

So when you make your plans for your life, be aware that they will change, often dramatically, during the first 20 years of your working life. Unless you find at a very young age that you have a definite desire to be in a certain job, staying flexible is your best bet. Take as many courses in school about as many different subjects as you can. You may discover unexpected talents that will open up brand new careers that you had never considered.

Personally, I think that your talent with photographing plants would make a wonderful tie-in with a future career. You have a definite eye.

To want to be a mail-sorter may well end up being a computer hardware repair person. Here in US, almost all mail is sorted by computers. I used a machine like that in banks, sorting checks. Since they broke several times an hour, I became an expert in fixing the stupid things ;D To this day I loathe Big Blue's equipment.

Evert, I like Pebble's idea. There is a British ship that visits this part of the world every few years with young people like you from all over the world (including Prince Henry some two years ago). They travel all over the world and do community work and lots of other activities, probably to provide the kids with some practical knowledge of different activities to later choose their careers. All I know is they are called 'Raleigh Operation'. Maybe you can do a search in the web and find out more about this great programme. I wish I had your age to have this sort of problems!

Big hug,

Ursula (from Chile)