When I grow up I want to be a fireman!!!

For most of my work life I have taken the jobs that are in line with what I know, which have mainly been the many restaurant and counter service jobs that the professionals don't want. Truth be told, I can make a damned fine coffee and could probably hold my own on a grill if i needed to. I've bagged a heck of a bag of groceries and I have run a dining room floor like nobodies business. At times all of these jobs had their finer moments and at times I was able to pull in some okay coin doing them but as I get older my impatience and tolerance level for these kinds of jobs diminishes. No longer is it okay for me to bust my ass for someone who doesn't notice or who sees me as a replaceable cog in the machine. I know I am worth more and I know that I can do much better than this, and so as of the end of 2011 I chose to put down old toys and started looking to broader horizons. This isn't as easy as it seems when you have no trades and little post secondary education, or maybe it is easy and the lack of confidence surrounding this makes it seem harder. Whatever the case may be, I now stand in a place of unknowns and I am sometimes touched by the fear that one day I will have to once again suck it up and go back to doing meaningless tasks for unethical bastards and for shitty pay. 
But I know in my heart that this will not be the case. I have made a solid decision and I stand by it until the end, but like all daring and revolutionary self choices, it comes with some fear. 
But I am stronger than my fear.
I don't think it's completely unreasonable to not want for the full on 9-5 schedule unless I am coming home every day having poured my heart into the work that i do and having come up roses. I don't think it's unreasonable to want for a self made schedule. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that i will one day be hired on at my dream job based entirely on my looks, charm and heart.
It seems to me that humankind has gone through a shift in dynamics where the white picket fence, power wife, happy white-washed kids and six figure salary has become less of the expected normality. So many of my friends have turned to making their own work through artwork, bodywork and just plain hard work. To me this is very attractive and as my self awareness grows I gravitate more towards this level of being.
I have always liked the idea of being a jack of all trades, taking on various odd jobs that fit right with my ideals and never settling in one place unless it is absolutely right for me. I feel that there is simply too much to learn and too many awesome experiences to suck the juice from as opposed to spending years stressed out and poor from schooling, only to get a job that is in half alignment with what i really want in life. Perhaps this is my fleeting, terrified non-committal nature and perhaps this will be my downfall, but while I am here and able bodied I would like to learn from many sources doing many different things that pique my interests. I don't think that is unreasonable and as long as I am feeding, clothing and keeping myself warm then I am hurting nobody in the process. I leave no brethren going hungry and no partners without, nor would i ever allow that to be my reality.
I think by the ripe old age of 37 that I have eclipsed whatever expectations my parents might have had for me. By now they know that I am of a different sort of breed and that the number crunching desk job passed me by a long time ago.
Maybe I'll go back to school one day and maybe I'll even learn how to cut granite at some point, but while I'm doing that I would like to make my living helping to bolster the visions of good solid people and to make some kind of difference in the lives of others. I'll even do these things for free if it means that I am learning something new and exciting or playing a part in what is bigger. For most of my life I was afraid to think this way and I assume that there are many of us who are crippled by the fear of poverty, lack of security and most of all a tainted sense of social standing to even consider this "irresponsible" way of living. I think that if we all dropped the bullshit and got into our hearts instead of our heads, our work/career existence might look a lot different and that we'd have a lot less of angry shitty people walking around making life even more miserable for the poor working slaves in the coffee shops and diner floors who are still caught in the grinding wheels of what we "should" be doing just to get by. 
We live in a world where anything and everything is possible. It just takes some belief, patience, heart and hard work. Eventually the fruit shall reveal itself and all the rest will be icing.
I don't think that's unreasonable. I don't think that a wild idea and a little grain of faith is at all  unreasonable. We should all have a go at it, even if but once.
So try something daring, my friends. Live unreasonably and without fear because in the end, when you die and take with you what you created while you were here you won't be weighted down with so many hang-ups, regrets or fears.  
I just want to see you happy. I just want to be happy.
As always thank you for reading.  I love you all ways!
~N