My boss posted an article last month that got me thinking. I was raised by worriers so I’m well-versed in the art of planning ahead, and I’ve always tried to think of what I’d do if something happened to me that meant I couldn’t be a designer anymore. My eyesight has continued to fail me increasingly as I’ve gotten older, and there’s always the off-chance that I could suddenly develop an incurable affinity for handwriting fonts.

When I was at lunch with my friend Chase over the weekend, I figured it out — I think my standby future would be as a chef. Chefs are in large part designers, but schooled in the manipulation of physical objects — food — rather than pixels on a screen. If my eyesight failed me, I think I could adapt my knowledge of design to my remaining, hopefully enhanced senses of touch, taste, smell, and even sound. It’s not like I have any actual training, other than having been raised by a dad who was also a really good cook. But nobody’s ever refused to eat anything I’ve served them, so that’s a start.

Call me a worrier, but it seems wise to keep a hobby that you love enough to make your career if you had to. I think cooking’s that hobby for me. And who knows — maybe I’ll wind up with a third.