Lifelong Learning
Pondering education and career goals and where they all lead
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When I was a child, I wanted to be a teacher. I loved learning and sharing information was even better. As I progressed through school that never changed, but I did take economics and accounting classes my senior year in high school which I really loved. So, when I started college, I entered as an economics major. The reason I didn’t major in education was because of the curriculum. Furthermore, I honestly never understood the requirement to study education to educate. Why math majors aren’t math teachers and history majors aren’t history teachers until you get to college completely eludes me. Sure, one class on teaching techniques, sure, but four years? Feels like the focus is on the wrong thing.
But I digress. In college I completely fell in love with accounting and switched gears to have a dual major of economics and accounting. I loved it. Having said that, I took the bare minimum for my major and went to a liberal arts school, assuring I took lots of math, religion, philosophy, literature, and history classes. I particularly loved my philosophy of physics and philosophy of religion classes. And though I did graduate and get into the economic honors society, my highest grades were actually in literature, philosophy and the like. I worked hard in economics and accounting, but the arts were in my soul. I had a dream of becoming a PhD, but was burned out on college by the time I had my bachelors, so I went to work immediately after that.
Though I didn’t get an education degree, I did work as a teacher while I was in college. Private schools don’t have to hire accredited teachers, like public schools do. So I was able to work at a local elementary and junior high school as a physical education teacher. I really loved it and even coached their junior-high-school girls’ volleyball team. It was a great way spend my spare time while earning some extra money and living my dream of teaching.
If you’ve read prior posts, you know I started working at Price Waterhouse right out of college and studied like crazy for the CPA exam. I’d listen to tapes in the car for three hours a day (commuting to and from work) and took eight-hour, CPA-review classes every Saturday. I passed the exam quickly and was licensed about eighteen months after graduation, with two years worth of experience under my belt, fulfilling the hands-on education requirements the Certified Public Accountant license required. I could have chosen to get a masters in accounting instead, but being a hands-on learner, I learned much more in the field than I ever learned in school. And I loved it.
The best thing about being an auditor and working in public accounting is being exposed to new businesses sometimes on a daily basis. I got to work on-site and delve into the financial records, processes, and procedures generated by all kinds of manufacturers, retailers, and service providers. I saw how upscale, real-estate firms made huge amounts of money trading on overnight currency fluctuations in escrow accounts; how a small tech company defrauded their insurance company through inventory fraud; how gold jewelry manufacturers held gold and gem inventory, assuring even the gold shavings were preserved and protected; how the uber-wealthy turned hobbies into businesses; and how famous celebrities lived and were compensated. It was a fascinating career.
Then I became a mom. I started specializing a little more in non-profits as a volunteer treasurer on the side, but I learned much about people, human development, and home economics while working in the home. The number of books I read were innumerable during that time, but what I started learning the most about was how many opinions there were on the “right” and “wrong” ways of doing things. I also became painfully aware that many opinions, even when they are authoritative and claim to be curative, are actually damaging.
I think it was through being a mom that I started to recognize the world wasn’t as black-and-white as I had been led to believe in my youth. The rights and wrongs were not clear. I also got closer to the reality that a whole person attends to all aspects of their life - financial health, social interactions, physical health, mental health. As a result, it was when my kids were very young that I got licensed as a personal trainer. I had skills in finance, and I dreamed of somehow integrating that knowledge with information about physical health and mental health into a brand of life coaching and counseling.
Practically speaking, I couldn’t yet see how that would work, and back then life coaching wasn’t a thing yet. Even once it was, that heavily-ungoverned title never spoke to me. I went back to accounting, working at Ernst & Young in their tax compliance department. I learned so much there, especially when I moved up to the National practice, working with teams studying best practices across the nation to codify them into updated processes and procedures for the whole country, as well as working with software developers to turn the practice into a paperless, virtual one. I also studied and practiced education within the firm and learned and applied best practices in organizational knowledge management. Knowledge is the only asset an organization has which cannot be replicated by other business. I learned to recognize knowledge as the most significant asset of any company and how to preserve and share it.
Another thing I learned at Ernst & Young was how much waste there often is in large organizations, especially when they get very large and stratified. Even Ernst & Young recognized this to an extent, encouraging tax preparers to work from home if they wanted, understanding that the cost of exorbitant downtown buildings were not necessary to provide value to clients and only increased costs. They were also working on reducing stratification, creating more efficiencies. While watching all this, I also recognized the hourly rates being billed by the largest firms also meant the level of service they provided was not available, because of cost, to the people who needed it most. Most of the time I was working with companies and individuals who already had large, in-house, accounting teams. The people who would really benefit from external tax and accounting support couldn’t afford it. I shifted my efforts to small businesses and sole proprietorships with just a handful of employees instead of the businesses with hundreds of personnel.
So I left the large accounting firms, and arriving in Washington, I struck out on my own. I studied best practices in accounting practice management and small firm management. I got certified in non-profit accounting and client accounting advisory services. However, I still had a fascination with books, literature, philosophy, and religion, so I continued those studies as well. While I was growing my firm, I studied kabbalah for a year-and-a-half, and even tried my hand at marketing spiritual support. It was an interesting process, seeing what worked for me and what didn’t. Paying attention was the key to success. The more I tried to force something that wasn’t working, the worse things got. It made sense to stick with what worked, and -for me- accounting worked.
I mention working a lot with non-profits. It was important to me, as I felt tremendously privileged during much of my life, to pay forward the support I received from others. Serving non-profits in many different ways has always been a part of that for me. It was interesting, as I followed the natural progression of supporting non-profits, that I began working with the local farmers market. From the local farmers market, I expanded to sharing the processes I developed for them working with alternative currencies and grants providing food to EBT recipients with other accountants. Then I expanded into working with those people to start a non-profit which managed grants for a larger group of markets, and this work grew to include teaching and sharing best-practices to all the markets in the state and nationwide. Supporting food-insecurity initiatives through farmers markets became a big part of my career because I didn’t resist what came naturally and was called to share something wonderful. And, as a result, my practice grew, and not only in that sector.
After writing a letter to the mayor about local concerns and my qualifications, I was appointed to the local planning commission, which I did in the evenings after work. I really enjoyed supporting the community by assuring all voices were heard on issues while learning land use law. I’ve always enjoyed legal topics, having studied constitutional law, state vs. federal law, tax law, employment and business law, among other topics. I’ve even been asked to teach attorneys on the last three topics, which is fun. The knowledge about how to work with the city, and the people I’ve met while there, has been extremely helpful as I’ve worked with people over the years.
During this time, I also worked a lot with the school district, especially within alternative education groups. I helped form the Anacortes Home Education Partnership PTO; worked as an accounting, psychology, math, and music history teacher in the local school district’s alternative school; and was the treasurer for the PTO for many years. Because I paid attention to what was needed, I finally got to be a teacher of academics, and I really enjoyed it. Public schools in Washington are allowed to hire non-accredited teachers if they (1) cannot find an accredited one to take the position, (2) have an accredited teacher approve the teaching plan, and (3) can show the teacher is qualified to teach the subject matter. I fit the bill.
After I graduated from college, I never lost my vision of getting my PhD. And a little over twenty years later, I started work on a Masters of Science in General Psychology. It took all those years to figure out exactly what I wanted to focus on intensely. And I knew I didn’t want to study tax and accounting more than I already did to keep my license. However, after seeing people struggle in big corporations, in families (especially my own), across the city, in government, in the courtroom, and in dozens of small businesses, I recognized that psychology was where my questions were.
The best thing about my MS in psychology was learning that there are no answers. Science teaches us that we can only determine what is false. We can, however, observe patterns of behavior to identify what usually happens under certain controlled circumstances. These patterns can create theories on how thing generally work in the world and in people’s minds. However, in the real world, circumstances are never fully controlled. Also, no two people are exactly alike, there are endless variables in everyone’s lives, making outcomes highly unpredictable. We can only do our best to observe patterns in ourselves and others and make efforts to leverage knowledge of those patterns to serve everyone’s best interests.
Around the same time I worked on a Masters in Divinity with the goal of getting my PhD in Metaphysics. I didn’t want to do the research required for a PhD in Psychology. One focus for that long didn’t appeal to me. But I did want to think deeply about all thought - including scientific thought - for the amount of time required for a PhD. This choice to study Metaphysics at the same time as my MS worked out well. Studying philosophies shared by so many people kept me thinking creatively and complimented the peer reviewed scientific research I was reading every day. It was healthy for me to be able to see some philosophy, then read the research, recognizing patterns identifying some aspects of philosophy as patently false while simultaneously recognizing some science as necessarily limited. Of course, there are many philosophies which scientific research supports. (Note I don’t say “prove.”) Thinking about all the religions of the world, what they say about human thought, and where they are and are not of value was a great way to compliment my psychology degree.
After I finished my Masters degree, I did get my license as a Counselor in the State of Washington. However, I quickly learned marketing myself as a counselor wasn’t how I connected with people. I learned the same thing about my MDiv and PhD. I didn’t connect with people through religion as a primary focus either, other than to perform a few marriages.
I learned through a lot of trial and error that there is a big difference between having a vision and forcing it to happen. It is important to stand back and observe what works and what doesn’t. I tried a lot of things that just didn’t quite click. And as much as I pushed back against “just” being an accountant, I eventually recognized that accounting was truly the way I connected with people, and that was o.k. In fact, it was perfect. That skillset was what the world primarily needed from me.
Once I settled into that reality, I started recognizing I was using everything I learned as a teacher, public servant, legal student, psychologist, and a reverend every day at my accounting firm. People came into my office with tax and accounting issues, but for most people these challenges were always part of a bigger picture. My job was listening. To be of the greatest service to anyone, hearing their challenges beyond the task to be done and addressing all the issues at hand, not just the superficial ask, e.g. “would you please do my tax return,” was key. The number of meetings that ended in philosophical, spiritual, psychological, or emotional discussions on top of the accounting or legal topics were many. In fact, there were many people who sought me out as an accountant because of my specific background. They knew they needed more than just the job done. They needed it done conscientiously.
Most jobs, on the surface, can be boring: do a tax return, make a coffee, serve someone a beer, ring up groceries, stock a shelf, listen to someone talk for hours. The titles that come with them also may be boring and not what we dreamed of as children. Even if our jobs are our dream job, the reality of them is never always living the dream. But living the dream isn’t what makes our careers, our families, our homes, our hobbies, our lives worthwhile.
What gives something value isn’t the job, the label. I had to get past my label, “accountant.” It wasn’t the task of accounting that made me valuable, it was what I brought to it and how I existed within each moment of it. When I embraced my whole self and did my best to embrace the whole personality of everyone I met as I did so-called-boring tasks, the tasks suddenly became meaningful. It is an amazing thing to be immersed in a particular moment, to experience the depth of a person’s personality, their hopes and dreams, the challenges of the specific moment, and to be fully present with it on every level possible. Full engagement is what makes a task worthwhile.
It took me many years to get past labels, to get beyond the book or the task and truly witness the world. This applies to me even more now I carry the label “retired.” I haven’t changed what I am doing in life just because my label has changed. I still interact with the world exactly the same way, other than having the opportunity to be more relaxed about it. I still love being with each and every person I get to spend time with, being present with them and every moment I experience, (including the shitty ones.)
I believe what Rainer Maria Rilke said about moments: it is isn’t a moment which fails to be remarkable, but our ability to describe it adequately which fails. This is true of people, too. Every moment, every person has something to offer us, if we just choose to pay attention and sit in wonder with them. We don’t have to read a single book or attend a single moment of school to experience wonder, take it all in, and learn from it. That’s what a lifetime of learning is, and that is what makes living worthwhile.
I believe that is what being human is about. Not everyone is able to pop their heads up above the ocean of humanity, out of the daily grind, but if we do, it can be amazing to observe the calm, the patterns of the wind on the water, where the waves crash, the wildlife, the aerial view just above the tumultuous sea we call life.
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