Miles Franklin had put a question mark after the word 'brilliant' when she named her novel My Brilliant Career but this was removed by her publishers. She then wrote My Career Goes Bung which I have heavily borrowed from when coming up with this rather original title to my post.
My story is not likely to win the Miles Franklin Award, so I might as well have called it "My Pretzel-shaped Career" because while it went bung several times, it did so while going from one bung to the next in a pretzel-shaped fashion. I don't know why; maybe I just like pretzels.
Actually, I do know why: BOREDOM! I get so easily bored in a 9-to-5 job. I love new projects, new jobs without structure where I get thrown in at the deep end and swim or drown. I had many of them because I sought them out - and after a while, people sought me out because they had heard that I thrived on them - but once they had been all set up and sorted out and become 9-to-5, I handed them over to - well - a 9-to-5er.
Without this boredom-hating affliction, I could've climbed the corporate ladder, I could've had a lot more time to play tennis or golf (neither of which I ever played), and I could've made a lot more money (although I made enough; after all, you can only eat three meals a day, can you?)
What I wouldn't have had was the excitement of the chase, the rush of adrenalin, the glamour of being in demand, the sights and sounds of so many different places and so many different people, and the enormous satisfaction I got when everything had come to a successful completion.
Would I do it all over again? Of course not! That would be boring, would it not? If I did it all over again, I'd be doing it entirely different once again; entirely different except for one thing: it still wouldn't be 9-to-5.
