October 12, 2025

Find a Door. Open It. Begin.

My youngest son, Dawson, has started interviewing for jobs. He finishes his masters in computer science in May, and both of us think it would be wonderful for him to leave with a job in hand. There are a gazillion different ways to use a computer science degree. Dawson just needs to decide where to begin.

If he’s like me, he’ll start with the first place that offers him a job. I’m not saying that’s the best advice, but it’s certainly what I did. History teaching jobs were hard to come by in 1985. I interviewed with dozens of public schools in California, Virginia, and Maryland. I interviewed with private schools and private boarding schools. And a week before the school year started, I got my first job offer in San Lorenzo, California. I practically leapt over the table to immediately sign the contract before they changed their minds.

Zig Ziglar said, “You don’t have to be great to start, but you do have to start to be great.” I love that. My San Lorenzo job ended up being better than I could ever imagined, but the best thing about it was that I got to start my career in public education.

So while I do hope that Dawson finds a job that best utilizes his skills and passion, and I hope that it’s a job he actually enjoys, I’m more excited about him starting the journey. Somewhere. Anywhere!

One of my favorite conversations to have is about people’s journeys that brought them to this place and time. In speaking with my friends, all of whom I regard as remarkable success stories, I have heard of seemingly random and often unexpected journeys. I have friends who started as shrimp boat deckhands, construction workers, gold miners, military (officer and enlisted), and so many other random beginnings, who have ended up as CEOs, marketing geniuses, artists, professors, authors, educational leaders, and more. Their journeys remind me that first jobs rarely predict final destinations.

One of my favorite simple life poems is Linda Ellis’s “The Dash,” which reflects on the dash between the years of birth and death on a tombstone. The poem ends, 

So, when your eulogy is being read,
with your life’s actions to rehash…
would you be proud of the things they say
about how you spent YOUR dash?

And what about the career dash – the one between your first job and your last one? While the first job may be related to the last, it is just as likely to have nothing at all in common, other than being part of the journey.

I had set my sights on being a teacher when I started teaching in San Lorenzo. I had no aspirations to be a principal, and I didn’t even know what the heck a superintendent did. Thirty-seven years later, all of those jobs were part of the journey.

And Jill never dreamed that her entire career would be spent in the same district that she started in. She also had no inkling that she would do so many things beyond the middle school math teacher job she first took back in 1990. Now in her 36^th year, her journey has included being a middle school math teacher, a high school math teacher, a mentor teacher, an elementary school teacher, and an independent study teacher. She’s loved it all.

I just watched the amazing Led Zeppelin documentary, “Becoming Led Zeppelin.” None of those guys would have ever imagined the dash in their journeys, where they improbably met each other and became one of the greatest rock bands of all time. My favorite scene remains their opening concert, where they blasted their new songs to an unsuspecting audience of families, many with small children and babies. The pained and shocked look as audience members covered their ears probably did not give them confidence that they were on their way to greatness. Yet that’s where their journey, their dash, took them.

I love the dash in the careers of presidents like Abraham Lincoln and Harry S Truman. Both were born into modest families, worked hard, failed many times, and somehow rose to greatness and changed the world in doing so. Their dash was filled with hard work, kindness, common sense, and resiliency, and they used all of that to overcome the ups and downs of any journey.

Another Zig Ziglar quote: “It’s not where you start or even what happens to you along the way that’s important. What is important is that you persevere and never give up on yourself.”

So my advice to Dawson: Find that first job and start your journey. Listen to people and their stories about their journeys, and learn from them. Believe in yourself. And when opportunity knocks, at least open the door, listen, and give it serious consideration. And in every step of the journey, believe in yourself, enjoy and learn from your colleagues, and do the best job you can.

I can’t wait to see where your journey takes you.

Post #139 on www.drmdmatthews.com

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Notes

This post took me WAY too long to write! My firsts drafts were . . . pretty darn boring, and almost read like a resume that is trying too hard to be interesting. For those of you interested in my cast aside stuff, (and I know you’re out there and I love you for it!), you can find my first draft here.

You can find Linda Ellis’s The Dash, in its entirety, here.

My next post will be about my visit home, and I’ll give you all an update on my mom’s battle with dementia, something I wrote about two years ago.

Photo courtesy of Craig Stanland’s LInkedin page. I had no idea you could post articles to LinkedIn. I’ll have to try that.