Rudderless

A common topic of conversation between us and our friends recently has been “what do we do after Shuttle”. Most of us are civil servants, so we aren’t really scared that we’ll be out of our jobs. But, there’s a lot of concern about just what our jobs will entail in the years between the last Shuttle flight and the first Orion flight. We’re at the age where most of us could realtively easily accommodate a career change if that’s what we want. But it’s hard to see into the future and know if we’d enjoy what we’ll be doing in 4 years if we stay - because nobody has told us what we’ll be doing in 4 years if we stay.

During round 246 of this discussion today, I finally identified a feeling that I’ve been having periodically over the last year. Rarely at first and then more and more often I’ve been having an uncomfortable feeling of disorientation when talking about this subject. It finally occurred to me today what it is. I don’t know what I want to do with my life over the next 5 years. Many people might find this strange, but at 31 years old this has NEVER happened to me before. I’ve always had a plan. High School. College. NASA. FDO. Suddenly, I’m facing a huge uncertainty in my life, and I’ve simply never had to deal with that before.

Still, though I might be feeling a little rudderless right now, I’m only moderately worried about it. I don’t anticipate not being able to find a job. It’s just I’m not sure how to go about finding one that I like as much as I do flying Shuttle. I guess I could have bigger problems.