ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with a discussion of formative career in devotee work and serious leisure, stressing the rewards and self-fulfillment that spring from it and the person's agency in making his or her career what it is. It discusses both formal and informal education and their relationships to adult education and to lifelong and self-directed learning. The chapter examines the role of the Internet as well as that of digital technology. It considers a second key component of personal development: achieving it through positive relationships. The chapter looks at positive emotion and its role in the developmental process. A formative career is the individual's sense of continuous, positive, personal development as it unfolds over the years. Life course is also broader than the related idea of family life cycle, in that the latter is limited to family matters. Contemplation as serious leisure would seem to be most accurately classified as a hobby of the activity participant variety.
