Career advice from Bear Grylls
BEAR Grylls is an adventurer whose travels have taken him into some of the most dangerous places in the world.
He has now put together a slim volume, entitled ‘With love, papa, designed to share with his three sons, and anyone else who will part with 4.99, the insights he has gained into the game of life.’
His faith shines through the book, peppered as it is with reassuring Bible promises. But also there are little nuggets that provoke thought and challenge lifestyle among the readers; on one of which I ask you to focus. “Choose,” Bear tells his sons, “a job that betters people’s lives.”
That advice runs counter to the aspirations of the brightest of our students, and perhaps of those employed to be their career advisers.
Often it seems that in the selection of a profession only one criterion is applied; remuneration. Among the factors at the root of our present financial turmoil, one cannot be denied; the sheer greed of individuals, and the feeling, so eloquently denied by Our Lord, that a man’s life does consist in the abundance of his possessions (see Luke 12;15).
The preacher-poet, Studdert Kennedy, who spent some years as a war chaplain, once wrote to his wife about their son, offering suggestions as to how he should be guided : “Make him a sportsman, encourage him to play games and to play the game; teach him to despise cowardice. Teach him that a gentleman should choose one of the poorly paid but honourable professions. Teach him to love and reverence women.”
Indeed, we find few fathers, if any, advising their sons to chase wealth above all else. An American general, allowed to write one letter home from his captivity in Vietnam, included this simple sentiment, “Remember, John, integrity is the only thing that matters.”
The novelist, John Steinbeck, agreed. He had a son who was called to serve in Vietnam during that ill-fated conflict. Perhaps the boy was resentful, and conjectured that he could have had a better life in San Francisco.
The novelist countered that mood in a letter: “If you had forced yourself to make an opposite choice, you would have been in violation of yourself, and I truly believe you would have been more miserable than you are. Of course, I am worried about you, just terribly worried, but I am proud too that you have not violated what you are.”
Bear Grylls finds an ally in one of Charles Dickens’ characters.
In ‘Our Mutual friend’, Rokesmith remarked, “No one is useless in this world, who lightens the burden of it for anyone else.”
There’s career advice worth following, whatever our age.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Coleraine
Friday 10 February 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 7 C to 10 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 5 C to 9 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: South west
