quirky and interesting: a book review

I read a lot of books. No, really - I read a lot of books. If I let myself, I can easily go through two or three books a week. However, as you can imagine, buying that many books could get pretty expensive; so I have a library card and stop by the local library every week or two to pick out some new reads. Not only does this make my bank account a lot happier, it also means I'm more willing to try books I wouldn't otherwise.

So I was browsing through the non-fiction a couple of weeks back, and found this book The Butterfly Hunter, with the tagline "Adventures of people who found their true calling way off the beaten path". After reading the jacket sleeve, this sounded like it could be either a) a really boring career path discussion or b) a really interesting career path discussion. Lucky for me, it was b. The author (Chris Ballard) does a wonderful job of mixing discussions about professional calling and purpose with stories of people with some unique jobs - mushroom harvester, NFL kicking coach, handwriting analyzer, movie trailer voice-over artist and (the title role) butterfly hunter. Reading these individuals' accounts of how they came to be in their current careers and how their choices are founded in their personalities and their aspirations is pretty insightful, and really struck home with me and where I am in my professional life right now. It was also entertaining, since it was fun to read how one becomes a professional female lumberjack or an ocularist and achieves success in such niches.

But the best part of the book were two quotes toward the end:

"I like passionate people so it doesn't matter what kind of passion they
have. If they're passionate about what they do, kudos. That's all that
matters."

"it is important to value, and ferociously protect, what it is you are
interested in. Otherwise it is too easy to listen to others as they tell you
what they think you should be doing."

Some really great thoughts about the importance of doing something you love - something that not only fulfills your needs but your wants.

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