I had beer tonight with an old friend. His adult son joined us, which was weird, because I still feel like I’m too young to have old friends who are younger than me who have adult offspring. I’m 50 but I view the world as if I were still in my mid thirties, whatever that says about me.
Anyway, the son wanted career advice, which was also weird, because again, I don’t feel like I’m old enough to be giving career advice. Also because my friend and I kept contradicting each other, then laughing about it, while the son grew increasingly frustrated because he was looking for words of wisdom. Sorry, kid, you picked a couple of idiots as advisors.
He wanted to know what being a Scrum Master was like. After a few relevant questions (and many more tangents, sub-references, and goofy questions), I figured out that what he was really asking was what he should do with his life to enable him to eventually chase his true passion, which is writing. I spent the rest of the evening arguing that he should not place writing on the back burner like that. Sacrificing what you really want to do in order to executing your backup plans is a recipe for regret. As much as I enjoy being an agile coach, I wish I’d taken writing seriously 25 years ago instead of waiting for someday to come when I could focus on writing fiction. I’d probably have a few dozen books under my belt by now.
Sam Falco 