The Problem with Scanners
by Charles Lamm
While Barbara Sher identifies several varieties of scanners, most share these basic traits.
Scanners tend to be:
- bright
- curious
- well-read
- multi-taskers
- generalists in a specialist world
- interested in any number of diverse hobbies
- too willing to accept society’s negative view of their lives
The core conflict for scanners is that we let others confine us with the question, “What do you do for a living?”, or its cousin, “What do you want to be when you grow up/graduate/etc?”
In the U.S., we judge and label people based on their occupations. Status attaches to certain jobs like doctors and lawyers. We call them professionals, but each is really just a job in snob’s clothing.
Years ago, when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Korea (before they economically developed themselves out of being a PC host country), people would want to get to know you. People would ask about your family, hometown, education, hobbies, and more. What you did for a living was way down the list.
And this was in a country where a person expected to join one company and stay in one occupation for life.
I remember a story from an American who served on the Board of Directors of a television station. The station was hiring a new president, and the hiring committee was reviewing candidates.
The hiring committee considered each candidate’s education, family background, wife’s family, character, social connections, political connections, friends, and reputation. At no point did anyone ask, “Can this person run a TV station?”
As scanners, we have allowed others to define the playing field.
The rules then state:
- you have to pick one career before you graduate and stick with it
- if you have a law, medical, or other professional degree and don’t practice your profession, you have wasted your credentials
- you will never get ahead if you jump from job to job or company to company
- you need to find your one true soul mate and get married until death turns you into worm food
Not only do you not have to accept the rules others make for you, you don’t have to enter their playing field.
But it takes strength. And courage. And skills.
There is no law against multiple careers, multiple interests, and living the life you choose so long as you do not interfere in others’ rights to do the same.
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Charles Lamm is a retired attorney and a lifelong scanner who recently discovered his “affliction”. You can read this and other articles – on a variety of topics, of course – on his blog at http://www.virtualjoefriday.com or contact him by email at focus@vitaclix.com.
