It's not easy deciding what you want to be in life. Career decisions required plenty of thoughts and planning. You want a job that's fun, yet challenging. You want a position that will utilize your existing talents, while teaching you new skills.

To find a career that was right for me, I had to eliminate a lot of choices.

Sportscasting was out. I could never remember how many innings were in a football game, or how many baskets you had to make for a home run.

I almost pursued a career in dentistry, but I could never figure out a way to do it without going into someone's mouth.

Becoming a professional landscaper sounded intriguing. After all, I'd taken a whole semester of horticulture. But my teacher talked me out of that career option. He said there wasn't a big demand for tumbleweeds as a ground cover.

I thought about secretarial position until I discovered I'd have to take notes. I had plenty of experience passing notes in school, but I wasn't sure I knew how to take them.

The post office sounded like a fun job - that is, until I heard they schedule you to work only 40 hours a week. I knew I'd never be able to read all those postcards in such a short of time.

Becoming a surgeon always interested me. But since I faint at the sight of blood, I figured that might slow things down a bit in the operation room.

I thought about a military career until someone told me about boot camp wasn't a place to shop for Western wear.

The state where I live offered me a career in music. They said their correctional system could use some new ways of punishing the prisoners. The deal fell through, though. Something about "cruel and unusual punishment" being unconstitutional.

I thought I would have been perfect for a career in the telemarketing field. But my Mom thought I wouldn't be able to handle it. After all, they let you stay on the phone only eight hours a day.

I almost became a hairstylist, but every salon owner I spoke with concentrated more on my history of customer injury than on my desire to work. Go figure.

After much thought, I finally narrowed it down to three choices - pharmacist, CPA or marketing consultant. Obviously, I ended up choosing the last one. But with my computer, I'm kind of getting a taste of all three.

There are unlimited possibilities for all of us to be something else than what we meant to be. You don't have to follow the route of your parents. Whether you're going to succeed or not is immaterial.

I was on my first big backpacking adventure, hiking through the heart of the wilderness. I had diligently entered every detail into a notebook, from the consistency of the dehydrated dinners we ate to the way the light played across snowfields.

And the rain: six days without letting up. We slogged through calf-deep mud and hauled our packs over beaver dams in skin-numbing water.

The rain clouds sat so low in the valleys they blocked any view of the mountains. At one point a furious hailstorm caught us far from cover. There was nothing we could do but stand still and wait for it to pass.

Just as I was about to abandon all hope of ever seeing the sun again, someone shouted, "Hey! Look at that!"

The sky struck me wordless. At the head of the valley was a perfect rainbow - seven layers of light arching between two mountain peaks that had gone silver. The rainbow was so bright the spires of the spruce trees below seemed lit like candles. If light could make sounds, we would have heard a symphony . Within minutes we were basking in the sunlight, the six days of rain fading to memory.

How could something as simple as a spear of light brings such feelings of hope and optimism, when moments earlier there had been gloom and fog? I couldn't say. I left a page in my notebook blank, figuring I'd someday find the words to describe how the light poured over the land like a benediction.

A rainbow's startling colors, its sudden appearance in a storm-wracked sky, the graceful brush stroke of its arc: all stir emotions difficult to express. It's easy to understand why rainbows would be seen as omens of good things to come.

To early Christians and Jews, a rainbow was a ray of heavenly light radiating from above. The idea of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow may have come down from a belief that angels sit at the top, playfully rolling golden coins down the rays.

Noah's "bow in the cloud" was a "sign of the covenant" that meant flood waters would never again destroy all life. An African American interpretation of the flood story says the birds on the ark were so excited by this sight that they flew through the rainbow - and acquired their brilliant colors.

Science, however, has its own explanations. As early as the 13th century, it was theorized that raindrops were the source of rainbows.

In 1637 French philosopher Rene Descartes demonstrated how droplets of water "bend," or refract, beams of light - sending them shooting off in new yet predictable directions. Then in 1704 Sir Isaac Newton wrote a book entitled Opticks, explaining how one ray of light becomes seven brilliantly colored bands when sunlight dances with rain.

If the sun, which we see as white, shines through a curtain of rain, most of the light passes unaltered through the center of the water droplets. But some of the rays - particularly light entering near the raindrops' edges - are bent. That refracted light sort into its component colors, then strikes the shiny, mirror-like surface of the back of the raindrop at such a sharp angle that it's reflected out.

The primary rainbow colors always appear in the same order from top to bottom - the "ROY G BIV" you may remember from science textbooks: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

Sometimes nature treats us to fainter, secondary rainbows that appear outside the main bow, their color schemes completely reversed. These are formed by light reflecting twiceinside the raindrop before emerging from its wild ride.

Want to see a rainbow? For all their suddenness, these ribbons of light do follow certain patterns. For instance:

*The best time for rainbow hunting is within three hours of sunrise or sunset, when the sun is low in the sky. Since rainstorms are more common in the afternoon, most rainbows are seen later in the day.

*When the sun is high, rain caused rainbows are invisible - except when you're at a high vantage point, such as a mountain summit, and can view a rainbow below.

*Rainbows can form anywhere there's falling water and sunlight. Look for them in the spray of waterfalls and in the windblown crests of waves.

*The sun has to be behind you to create visible rainbows - so look west in the morning and east in the afternoon.

*Chasing rainbows is futile. The angles of refraction and reflection have to stay constant for you to see the colors. As you walk toward the rainbow, it will always appear the same distance away.

Despite all the science, however, rainbows remain more within the realm of the artist than the physicist. When we stare up at a rainbow, it isn't wavelengths of light most of us see. It's something wondrous - a gift, a bright ribbon wrapped for a moment around the sky.

Maybe that's why, years later. my rain-stained journal still has a single page without words. When you encounter one of the most beautiful things in nature, sometimes it's best just to be silent and look.

Need more time? Wake up a half hour earlier every day and you can add about 183 hours per year to your life. And also consider this: Spending just 10 minutes a day searching for misplaced items adds up to 60 hours of wasted time annually.

Can you really find an hour for pure enjoyment every day? Probably not every single day. I have to admit I keep trying to figure out ways to make time for the "good things in life" - and it isn't easy.

When friends used to call me and ask how my weekend was, I would often reply, "Hectic!" That is, until someone recently pointed, "You're always saying your life is hectic!" So I banished that word from my vocabulary and have now begun to congratulate myself on the little victories, such as spending an evening playing board games with my younger brother and sister. Some oldies but goodies like checkers, dominoes and Monopoly make me feel young, playful and competitive again. But back to that elusive spare half hour! I'm a night owl, so I stayed up 30 minutes later to make some precious time for myself. Yet it still doesn't feel as though I've found those extra 183 hours. As the old saying goes, you can never have too much of a good thing!

You would think by now they would have concluded that being man's best friend was a rotten career choice. Dogs have been shaking hands, fetching sticks, finding lost children and patrolling junkyards for a few millennia now. And for what? A pat on the head?

I love dogs, but it's time they learned a few things about self-esteem and empowerment from cats. Cats don't do anything they don't want to do, and they still get treated like Egyptian royalty. Their owners spend a fortune buying tiny cans filled with tender, liver-flavored victuals and consider themselves blessed if Tabby deigns to enter the room.

Dogs are expected to eat whatever is tossed at them. They're expected to come immediately when whistled for and to live happily with whoever buys them out of a basket.

Cats would never chase a mechanical rabbit around a racetrack. Dogs are bright enough to realize they'll never catch Swifty. But they keep chasing him because they want to please. Dogs not only take these indignities lying down, they take them sitting up and begging. They'll let you put flowered hats on them and dress them up in tutus. Cats categorically refuse to perform.

I think it's time that dogs just said no. No, we won't pull sleds across Alaska for a bowl of reeking fish stew. No, we won't watch the world go by, panting in the back seat of a locked Toyota in the Kmart lot. No, we won't let you name us Ralph. And no more greasy gristle. We want the prime cuts.

Cats get what they want because they won't settle for a dog's life. It's all about self-esteem and empowerment. What dogs need are a few 12-step sessions with a sensitive facilitator. They have to give themselves permission to feel good about themselves, to stop craving approval, to stop being so damned co-dependent. If he's going to be man's best friend, Ralph should at least get union scale and a 401K.

Halloween is a redundancy around our house. My young brother and sister are almost always in costume especially my sister, 14-year-old. Pirate gear is a dependable fashion choice, though elements of the Untamed West are lately creeping in. He's just as likely, though, to don a wig of curls and a favored purple dress. The use of flowing scarves tapered off for a time, then returned. Eventually, I suppose he will abandon his cross-gender costuming impulses.

My young brother, slowly sneaking down on there years of ages, is more subtle in his costume palette. He's a hat man. He'll place any hat-like item on his head - sack, box, baseball mitt, whatever. Overall, he carries his substantial charm with a measure of dignity. Little does he seem to know that when he places that little conductor's hat, for example, on his head, that he's reaching Norman Rockwell-level particle accelerator of cuteness. If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of hearts melting around him.

Halloween may be redundant, in my eyes, but for my brother and sister, it's the Great Permission to expound endlessly on costume ideas. We've got plans in the works for the pirate-hum-mingbird, the zombie-schoolteacher, the sheriff of he moon. Any combination is possible in the minds of my brother and sister; paradoxes do not thwart them. And so every day, my parents and I are subjected to endless running monologues, stream-of-conscious pontifications of costume revelations.

For me, the impetus to costume has shifted from myself to my house. Years ago, I built a haunted porch, complete with scary dolls, chilling music, exotic draperies and flickering candles. It's a labor of love; I want my home to participate in this greatest, most egalitarian holiday. Consequently, my front porch is an emporium of horror. It takes courage to walk up to my diabolical diorama.

The irony is that for all the fear that Halloween is supposed to generate, we somehow manage the daring to do what we would otherwise never think of: knock on the door of a perfect stranger, and ask for something. Halloween encourages us to trust each other, to transcend our everyday boundaries. It inspires friendliness and cooperation. Is there any other holiday that comes close?

Christmas, Hanukkah, Thanksgiving and Easter, for example, can inspire giving. At Christmas time, door-to-door caroling is still, thankgoodness, an activity that hasn't completely disappeared. But these sorts of celebrations are, for the most part, nuclear family-oriented. Imagine, for instance, approaching random domiciles, hoping of wrapped Christmas presents from their occupants. Other cultural celebrations, such as New Year's Eve and Fourth of July, are generally more communal, yet these festivities usually commence in large, public places. Halloween, on the other hand, has no public venue. It hits us squarely in our homes. We can, if we want, turn off the lights and pretend we're not home, but there's risk involved in that. Vandalism might occur. And so Halloween forces us to open our doors - to anyone.

For a culture that's lost touch with its neighborhood existence, Halloween is a return to an earlier, pre-televisions mod of interaction. And despite the predictable numbers of corporate-marketing uniforms, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers costumes, the Bat Simpsons, the Barneys, Halloween inspires creativity. For every corporate cone, there are a dozen homemade costumes, Improvisation is necessary - and every act of improvisation is an homage to innovation.

Whenever I see a police officer, fire-fighter, or nurse on Halloween, I wonder: is this a costume - or are they really what they appear? This, I think, is the puzzle and beauty of Halloween. This holiday, this celebration, reminds us that our clothing, our uniform, is a mere mask. Beneath it, we are always something else. Halloween shakes us down, loosens us up, invites us to dance with our own, personal archetypes.

My brother and sister can't wait to assemble and try on their costumes - whatever paradox they finally decide upon. Fundamentally, Halloween gives them a change to flirt with their terrors, to manage these insecurities by becoming those very things they fear most: pirates, devils, zombies, boogymen.

Halloween manifests these powerful fears and brings them out of the dark, and into the eerie glow of the jack-o-lantern. We take that terror door-to-door, so we can show it to others, our neighbors, our friends, and other strangers. In fact, we are rewarded for our bravery with sweets. There, in the flicker of Halloween's creepy light, we exchange fear for trust. It's a trick and a treat.