The road to professional listener

I am pursuing a master’s in counselling psychology. Another left turn in a career full of abrupt changes in direction. Engineering degree, manage some projects, consulting, open a restaurant, start a software company, then become a professional listener of other people’s personal problems. It adds up if you look at it right.

Doing something new was always in my retirement plan. I thought maybe I’d teach high school math and physics as a retirement gig, but managing a hundred or so young people in a restaurant environment made me realize what I really liked was the personal stuff, the messy complicated puzzle of human beings. I could get that without involving math or reciting Newton’s laws.

My sister did the same master’s program and has been counselling for a number of years. Talking to her about it I know I’ll like the part-time option, that I can do it on a laptop from wherever, and that it might keep me sharp into my seventies. I might even be good at it.