The Meaning of the Word 'Career'

By Sab

* This is very tongue in cheek and for a bit of fun :)

We all know the word ‘career’ is synonymous with vocation, work, job-life, employment history and so on. But the other day I suddenly realised (and this is so obvious so do forgive me) that ‘career’ also means ‘to hurtle’ or fly past, like ‘career into a brick wall’.
Now I’m a little bored of the term ‘career’ making me think of hard-nosed professionals and stable ‘careers’, of career ‘ladders’ and so on. At one point I think I decided I didn’t want a ‘career’, but I didn’t really know how else to word it. And there, in the word itself is the answer: I prefer the ‘careering down the street’ meaning of ‘career‘.

Got out my handy thesaurus. Do you know what else ‘career’ means?
Hurtle
Plunge
Shoot
Tear (into)
Thrust (?! Thesaurus doesn’t lie…)
Scamper
Spring
Bound
Tumble

And so on. These words are so energising! Can you imagine if ‘career’ was changed to ‘scamper’? There’d be scamper-advice centres! And we’re all going through ‘hurtle change’. Which way are you going to fling yourself next? How are you thrusting through your working life?!
There’s a long forgotten oomph side to ‘career’ that I think we should embrace.

If this is what careering is all about then I’m in, I’m all in.