 When Jane Williams of German Village describes her 36-year career as an educational researcher, the following words come up: “stress,” “long hours,” “burnout.”
But when the 61-year-old explains what she’s doing in retirement, she bubbles up. Now, her feelings are summed up in this simple sentence: “It’s just fun.”
Like many other retirees these days, Williams is doing more than enjoying familiar pastimes. Shortly after ending a career as an educational researcher at Ohio State University Williams signed up for a beginning painting course at the Cultural Arts Center in Columbus. Two years later she’s relishing in her newfound skill.
She now paints three hours twice a week at the arts center and has seen her work displayed on gallery walls. “I love it,” Williams says. “Most of the time it’s very relaxing and time passes quickly.”
Williams represents the longing of many hard-working people who often find themselves in a career rut. Yet discovering a new passion can be difficult for anyone at any stage in life, says Lisa Evans, a Columbus social psychologist who offers “life coaching” services. Often people simply become frustrated with their jobs and know that they want to do something different.
They just don’t know what.
“Think about what you liked to do as a child,” Evans says. “Did you spend your days riding your bike? Maybe a bike ride is in store, and you start training for a bike ride across Ohio. Did you play with Barbie and make up stories? Maybe a role in your community theater could lift your spirits. Did you spend your days coloring? Maybe an art class would spark your creativity.”
Williams believes something inside her prompted her to sign up for that first oil painting class. Perhaps it was a painting that hangs on her bathroom wall inside her German Village home.
The colorful swirls of finger paint she smeared in the second grade resemble a candy ribbon. Her mother, Esther, who died while Evans was teaching at Ohio State University, kept it for years.
“Mom saved it in the bottom of one of her drawers,” Williams says.
While Williams and her brothers were sorting out her mother’s effects, they discovered striking, yet delicate pencil drawings of people and animals that Esther made on ditto paper when she was young.
Like her daughter, Esther possessed a special talent that she brushed aside in favor of more practical pursuits. Williams said her mother dropped out of Radcliffe College, Harvard University’s sister school, to help raise her five brothers and sisters after her father died. While Jane and her two brothers were growing up in Newark, Ohio, Esther sold Avon products for 40 years to help pay the bills and didn’t return to college.
Williams was excited to see for the first time the sketches in the same dresser drawer that contained Williams’ early finger painting.
“Yeah, there’s probably some link to all of this,” she admits now while sifting through a stack of her own paintings that she’s completed during the past two years. Her subjects vary, depending on what strikes her fancy. She uses vacation snapshots and famous paintings, such as Georgia O’Keeffe’s Poppies, as inspiration and motivation to practice blending paint colors. Her technique improves with each new painting.
“I can see a big difference from then to now,” Williams says.
So, too, can Williams’ longtime friend, Beth Ervin.
“Even though I’ve known Jane for 30 years, I had no idea whatsoever that she was interested in painting,” says Ervin, who met Williams when she was a graduate student at Ohio State. “It surprised me to no end when she said she was taking classes. It surprised me even more when she became so involved in it.”
Williams, speaking in a gentle but husky voice, doesn’t dismiss her lifelong career. As director of research and evaluation for the Literacy Collaborative in OSU’s College of Education, Williams worked with school administrators to improve students’ test scores.
Williams says her work was important because it made a difference in the lives of children.
Painting is now making a difference in her life.
“It almost seems like she lived most of her life in the wrong side of her brain without realizing it,” Ervin says. “And I don’t think it was making her very happy. I think she would tell you she loves retirement. But I don’t think it is so much about not working but at working at something she loves.”
Ignite Your Passions
Life coaches suggest these tips for people who know they want to do something different but are unclear on where their true passions lie:
• What would you do, even if you didn’t get paid to do it?
• What puts a smile on your face?
• What do you look forward to?
• What comes easy to you?
• What brings you great satisfaction?
• What would you regret not having tried?
What terrifies you and causes you great stress? (The opposite of this answer could move you closer to finding your passion.)
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