Cannot one say chosing what kind of life I want to live as is the same as choosing a carrer I want? Then, is career the same as life? Or are they different.
What bothers me to ask such a question is, I see when a person who is an electrician, they say they have a great career, or those trading school saying " have a career not a job " , and I see those buisness owners who are at the same time making money and sad. So I say is this what they are going to do for the rest of their life?
Choose a career , why not say choose a life? perhaps its the salesman motivating speaking.
Being that most ppl’s lives center around their career… to me they are the same thing. Here’s my take:
You will only be truly happy if you have a job you LOVE doing. Second best thing is having a job you might not like as well, but with certain aspects of what you (again) love doing. I feel that you are born to share your gifts. If you feel like you don’t have them, you just haven’t figured them out yet. They are inside you and it is your job to find them. I didn’t get to use mine until I was over 40. When you get it you will know. The more stuff you try - waiter, yardwork, cook, bottle washer (doesn’t matter) the closer you will be to finding what you want to do - better yet - what you DON’T want to do which is just as valuable in the long haul.
Here’s what I did and it really helped me to decide.
Write down your greatest dream job… I don’t care if it is a circus act.
Focus yourself on this for your life - you can collect garbage while you learn to tight-rope walk. Makes the garbage collecting a “dream” job.
Write down how you want your job to feel. What do you want to wear? Where do you want to live? Do you want to work with people? For someone else?How much money is enough to get by and what is job #2 that you can stand while your dream goals are being met. Most of all, through your lifetime what does everyone tell you you are good at? Think hard about that last one because it might not be that obvious to you.
Just remember, after you get your dream job, IT IS A JOB. I have my dream job personified… singer/keyboardist in a band and get paid for it? Yea, but I work my ass off… as I am smiling, of course.
warhol and his crew had a factory, where they just hung out, did drugs, and looked sexy in, they probobly made art every once in a while as well., that sounds like a nice job.
i think being an ice cream taster would be a pretty kick ass job…
I think that your job can help you have the life you want, or make it harder to have the life you want. I don’t think they’re the same though.
A job that you love, with people you like, for good money, etc, etc, doesn’t mean you’ll have a good and fulfilled life. Likewise, a job you hate doesn’t mean you won’t have a wonderful and fulfilling life.
I think the real challenge is to take a wide view of your job and career and evaluate how it fits in with who you want to be.
nice quote: a kind word can warm a winter for three months.
let say you find your dream job, will not one day you will retire and be old? So is this life? Work and then retired at an old age, then knit or go to those nursing homes or sitting at the park and play chess?
Something strikes me that there is a relation of job and life, yet, I still find that both are independent. A job is merely a means of making money accompany what you like to do. Life should be an ends to itself, which I do not know how to explain it in practical reasoning.
But a job can also be your passion. Make money at your passion and you’ve got it MADE. Then old age is just a sweet time to look back and bask in the glow of your wonderful life. I suggest having a brood of children too, so you can enjoy the grands. You get what you give.
I graduated from university with two degrees that could have enabled me to teach. As I contemplated teaching however, I could see myself in the position where a desperate student asked me, “What is the purpose of life?” I didn’t have an answer and I decided I wouldn’t teach until I did. I never did teach. I just kept searching for that answer.
While I was searching I picked apples, worked on plant security, moved furniture, worked two wretched years for General Motors, and 25 years ago I began a most enjoyable period being a carpenter. My most satisfying occupation has been defending my mother against sad attacks for the last 5 years. There is still the possibility of teaching.
My advice here is to avoid the temptation of “dream” careers and occupations. If a student asked me to day, “What is the purpose of life?” I would say do the best you can under the restrictions of humanity, to simultaneously “reach out to the limits of your capacities, to others and to God” and help ease the restrictions.
Every body loves Bessy, because the most beautiful woman is the lover of wisdom, at least to me. But it is not necessary that the lover of wisdom means he knows wisdom. I found DEB post more useful.
Bessy ~
Don’t you think it is obvious that everybody knows this? And if you are married, surely you are secured by a husband , and you say all kinds of virtuous things. But if you are not married and if you are the husband who is providing, he will not say such a thing.
DEb
Why should we avoid dream? And what does your quote mean?
I don’t think we should ever avoid our dreams. Our dreams are what gives us our drive in many cases and that doesn’t mean you can’t reach out or be spiritual in your quest. A dream job may never come to fruition but seeing the goal sometimes lets you find your path. That path may lead to other wonderful experiences in your life, that’s all.
I wasn’t sure what you meant dan, in talking about marriage - but yes I do see it from the point of view of a parent which is projecting MY value for life. But that certainly doesn’t man it has to be your’s.
Sorry I was late responding to your comments. I was stuck in Bessy’s jar of gems. I grabbed as many as I could and it took me the longest time to realize that if I didn’t drop all but one, I wouldn’t be able to get my hand out of the jar to type.
So Dan asked
and Bessy said
By all means don’t quit dreaming. Although I’ve felt like concluding many times I am a fool to dream, you are reading the words of someone who through 40 years has never really given up dreaming there is a common purpose of life for all the individuals of humanity. However there is a chasm between dreaming there is a purpose of life and dreaming that a job or career can give purpose to life.
When I say avoid dream careers or occupations I am saying don’t long after them thinking they will provide a sense of purpose to your life because they won’t. To quote from my poem,
“Careers and jobs we think we need
To fill the void will not succeed.”
Then since you two brought it up I will say you similarly should not approach any relationship with any other person thinking they will fill the void in your life. For certainly you will self-destruct. Two people trying to fill the void with each other will self-destruct twice as quickly.
So dream, “reach out to the limits of your capacities, to others and to God”; but don’t try to fill the void.
I found DEB post more useful.