Too often we approach life as we approach internships. We might be mildly interested or maybe even captivated, but an internship is an internship – it’s not going anywhere. It’s a dead end. A means to an end. Crappy or no pay and we can’t wait to get through it. The destination is the point.
But an apprenticeship is so much more. It is engrossing, captivating, and desirable. When we see our situations as apprenticeships, we learn from them, grow in them, and come away changed. We come out better than we started. Our focus was on learning the trade, it was on changing who we are to become more than who we were. It’s about leaving part of who we were behind in order to forge a more complete version of ourselves.
An apprenticeship is about the journey, not the destination.
We are drawn to people who are passionate about the journey; who embed themselves in life; who get dirty, then clean themselves up; who fail, then get up again. We love stories of grit and perseverance, of persistence in the face of hardship.
Treat life as an apprentice – soaking up every instance, every job, every circumstance – and learn to love the journey.