I was talking to one of my sons the other day about work, life and things in general. And the word ‘niche’ came up, and I thought that would be an important subject to think and write about. That is where most of these thoughts that make up the things I have written over the past several years. A word comes up in a conversation, a word that my simple mind thinks, that’s a word that needs some attention.
This son has, over the years gone from job to job, not being happy with any of them for very long. He was like a hound sniffing here and there for whatever it was that he could be happy doing. After he turned 45, he finally found a job where he is happy and where he has done very well. He finally found his niche. Niche, is a strange little word that is not used that frequently, and yet it represents a very important aspect of every person’s life. Many people live their lives doing a job that if they had their choice they would not be doing. There is no excitement for them, day after day they get up put on their uniform, grab their lunch pail, and head for work. Year after year, they go through the same routine wishing for retirement to hasten an end to it all. They may have had opportunities along the way to go somewhere else and to do other things but for fear it wouldn’t work out they just hung onto what they knew and felt safe with. For some reason this son, referenced above, had no fear of moving on when he realized his current work was not what brought some daily joy to him. He was sometimes criticized by wife and family for not being able to hold down a job, but that did not seem to change his way about going through life and job after job. He often had to borrow from family and friends to keep his head above water. He always managed to pay people back, but his finances were never stable. Until that day that he found his niche, selling was always his interest, but selling businesses as a business broker is where he finally found a home. He found his niche! How wonderful it would be for everyone to find their niche, not just a job but a niche. A place, a job, a profession where they fit. Where they enjoy what they are doing and at the same time have it pay their bills and even more. Everyone should have the confidence to find their niche; yes, it could be scary trying different things until you found the place and the type of work that suited you. The job that you looked forward to going to every day, a job where the day may pass by swiftly and where you think you would like to stay and finish the thing you were working on. I had such a job at a University. I was an administrator, and I had the authority to make changes, to make things easier to do for my staff. I enjoyed thinking of better ways to do things and I was good at it. I believe that I had a lot of niches because over the course of my working career I have had many jobs that I enjoyed doing. When I was younger, I worked in construction-type jobs, and I always enjoyed seeing a house or a building going up. Possibly there are people who have a lot of niches. They just seem to be happy with being busy and seeing things get done. A person’s niche is probably related to their personality, their energy level, their body type, their sex and their attitude about work and life in general. Everyone needs to find that special niche to find their greatest happiness in life.