Researching like a pac-man

I am always surprised to realize that I am more of a researcher than I thought.  As a child I had this aspiration to cure cancer.  Or should I say dream sequence because it was not that I really wanted to cure cancer per se, but rather that I had an image of people in white coats in a laboratory learning and discovering.  I imagined myself with goggles on and test tube in hand with boundless inquisitiveness.  I was able to articulate over the years that I enjoyed research and learning, obvious in my career choices.  But I suspect that I fell into my area of research and would have been as just as satisfied if I had fallen into another area of research.  Though I am not one to have regrets in life.

As is true with so much in life, things unfold without you necessarily consciously moving in a particular direction.  Yes, we make decisions by not making decisions, but the choice to become a media researcher was very in the moment and not a long-contemplated path.  That is not to say that I do not love media and most certainly I have enjoyed all that I have learned about media and human behavior.  But I have found that at this point, perhaps because I have gathered expertise in the field that it is not enough for me and I crave new things to explore.  It is not that I want to stop being a researcher, but rather that I want to be a researcher of a different kind.  I am grateful that my route into media allowed me to be a research psychologist in the business world.  I learned so much about the human condition and organizations in corporate America.

I research my way through life as easily as I breathe, asking questions of people and wanting to know as much about a person as I possibly can.  It is the psychologist in me, the storyteller in me, the researcher in me that wants to learn by hearing about other people’s lives.  I am a researcher gathering knowledge like a pac-man nibbles away at anything in its path.  My work has redirected to a path that includes understanding human behavior through coaching and celebrating life’s transitions through ceremony.  I can continue to be the researcher I naturally am, but with renewed energy.