I’m moving on up—I mean… over. At the very least I’ll be around. And that’s okay. Up is a limiting direction—no, really, it is. Once you start going up, your options are to continue to go up, which is obviously the best-case scenario, go over, which after going up feels stagnant, or go down. Me? I want to go around, and it just so happens that’s where I’m going.
A year into a new job at a new company in a new field, moving around professionally sounds vague, unfocused, and it does not sound fancy, but I’m not a fancy person. As soon as the weather drops here in Milwaukee, I wear the same tie-up boots every dang day. And those boots were made for walkin’, and where do they walk? All around our building.
I’m one of those people that when asked, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” instead of humoring the inquirer, I’m honest (as I am in most things) and respond with the verbal equivalent to a shrug. It’s not indifference or lack of ambition. It’s a genuine acknowledgment that no previous five-year period has seen me where I thought I’d be, so the exercise in prophesizing seems like an expenditure of energy I’d be better off using to decide what I want for dinner.
That being said, I am not aimless, un-invested, or goal-less. On the contrary, I am aimed, poised toward the future I want—it just so happens that that future is flexible, and changing as I grow, learn new things, and am exposed to expanding experiences.
A year ago, when I walked in to begin acting as the Director of First Impressions, I had little concept of what a day would look like, let alone what I’d be doing 367 days from then. I started, bound to a specific place for a specific purpose, except when there was a random polar bear sighting… Three months in, I was in Virginia. Four months, Tampa. Six months, I started sneaking away from my desk, finding places I was needed, filling in gaps, and solving problems that weren’t mine by assignment but by choice.
   
Thus, a wandering path was chosen: a path on which there are forks and hills and obstacles and loops sometimes taking me back to the start or getting me lost, and sometimes I get stuck on a long, straight section of trampled earth wondering if there isn’t something to learn there, too.
My path, while perhaps wandering in job responsibilities and field – and life – isn’t as wandering as some. And there are those 5-year planners, who trek purposely up that hill, who would shudder at my choice, but I consider myself lucky to have found a place that allows me to not know a little, experiment, fail safely, and ultimately, climb – metaphorically or not.

 Up is one direction you can go, but The Rhythm of Reman wonders why simply go up when you can go all around? Not all paths are straight, and Andee likes it that way. Do you shoot for the hill or take the path where it goes? Comment below or connect with Andee directly.