On the jobs we do

A quote often attributed to Walt Disney is to “find a job that you like so much that you’d do it without compensation; then do it so well that people will pay you to continue”. Recently, a few people have asked me for advice (and also simply discussion) on career choice. Until not long ago, I believed that career choice should be based on one thing only: passion. I have now come to consider that there are many ways to live a life – and not all are based on career choice. So instead of just discussing jobs today, I want to discuss satisfaction and success in life.

What is a successful life? Well, in the world we live in and the story the media feeds us success is measured in dollar value, in popularity, and in gaining the admiration of others. We think of successful people as entertainment performers, businesspeople with lots of wealth, and sportspeople who win competitions. But what really is success? In the simplest sense of the word, success is about having a goal and achieving it. A successful person, therefore, is someone who attains a goal they set about to achieve. In this is sense it is superfluous for anyone of us to call someone else successful unless we know what their goals and passions in life truly are.

One thing is deciding on a career choice, and quite another is having a fulfilling and successful life. Career choice is easy; the only thing hard about it is deciding what importance you place on a job in your life. To summarise I put it this way, there are three types of people in the workplace: You are either the kind of person where 1) Your job pays your bills so that you can engage in the things that bring you true fulfilment, 2) Your career is what brings you fulfilment and the rest is “merely living”, or 3) You are of that tiny minority that generate both an income and derive true pleasure from your job. Neither of these modes of thinking about your job are “good” or “bad”, they’re just the decisions we make. The choice doesn’t matter, but what will make you a miserable person is being one of these three people, but working a job out of sync with what your beliefs are.

Living to work

The first kind of way to live a life is to live for your work. What I mean by this is that your job is what gives your life meaning and a sense of fulfilment. Of course, life isn’t just about jobs and careers but there is nothing wrong with having your job as the priority in your life. Not all of us can and I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to, but that is not to say that this is a bad thing.

I have read a fair bit about Temple Grandin, a highly intelligent and proficient woman with autism. She dedicates her time to helping animals, designing animal-friendly farm equipment, and the study of many scientific subjects. Someone once asked her if now that she has all these university degrees, money from her businesses, does she not want for more in her life. Does she not want love, a husband, children? No; she says she didn’t. She feels complete and fulfilled. Her life is successful – and there is nothing wrong with that! I have incredible respect for Temple Grandin.

Working to live

You meet the most wonderfully creative people working jobs waiting tables and selling you movie tickets and cleaning your floors and dishes. To most people these are “menial” jobs, or money jobs. Rarely do people desire an entire career or lifetime doing these jobs, but the truth is that they do put food on the table and pay the rent, etc. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying everyone who works these jobs are secretly creative geniuses by night or anything like that. But having some money around is helpful to anyone, particularly if you are trying to also be creative in your own time and at your own pace without the pressure to make a living from your creative or humanitarian or whatever other endeavours. The downside to having a “hobby” is that unfortunately many so-called unskilled jobs come with menial wages and the struggle to survive on this can come to kill the most well-intentioned creativity. The instinct to eat is almost always greater than the instinct to express yourself or help others. And yet it’s not always about creative expression.

 

Many times I have craved in difficult times a job that didn’t require me to think about it after I leave my jobsite, that people’s health/life weren’t dependent on my decisions when I felt unsure, or that I could afford more time spent at home. Spending less time and relative effort on the thing that only brings you income has the advantage to allow you to build the wealth that may be of more value to you: true human warmth, compassion, caring, and the sense of belonging to a family where every member is crucial and appreciated. Personally, family IS of great value to me. Working to live is about working a job for an income so that you can afford (cognitively and emotionally too, not just financially) to do the things that bring you true fulfilment.

Working with passion

The quote I mentioned at the start is essentially about getting paid to fulfil your passions, and that is the last scenario I want to consider. At first you may think that I have already spoken about this when I discussed living to work, but this a bit different. I often meet people who tell me “I wish I could have been a …” and no matter what their age I always ask them why they’re not. The responses I can tell you are almost always excuses and not reasons.

There is a minority of people who won’t make excuses, and they become the people who reach the summit of their chosen careers. In any field of industry (but particularly in sports, performance arts, and business), the general trend is for there to be many people in the lower ranks of industry trying to make it to the top - and there are just very few spots at the top. It is, of course, very easy to become discouraged by the numbers, the statistics, and the probabilities. And we’re very good at thinking of reasons why we can’t succeed and imagining stories other than the truth of why others did/do succeed. The actual truth, though, is that there are no easy ways to the top – and accepting that challenge because of a burning desire to reach that top is what will give you the strength to overlook the statistics and probabilities. Isn’t that a foolish thing to do, though? I mean, what if you die and you have never reached that summit you desired so much? Isn’t your whole life a failure then? I pondered this once, actually (and, yes, probably because I was looking for a reason to give up), and it was just at the time I watched a news report on some military officers who died in battle. I realised that the news reports kept referring to them as war heroes, brave people who had made the ultimate sacrifice for something they believed in. Of course, in military terms the goal is to win the battle – and if you die trying you’re not considered a loser, but a hero. Yes, a hero, a successful person! Do you see what I’m getting at?...

But the damn statistics loom over your head always like a horoscope. Very very few people make it to the summit of their chosen career field – but those who do didn’t get there by accident or just by wishing it so. In medicine I’ve had colleagues tell me about the disheartening statistics: they want to be a specialist in this field but there’s only so very few people who get this job in Australia. My answer to them is always the same too: “yes, and why can’t that person be you?”. Why? Oh, yes, we are all very good at thinking of reasons why others are successful and we never will be. Others slept with the boss, probably; they are smarter than us; they have a postgraduate qualification we don’t have; their parents know people who know people, etc. I guarantee you that if you meet the people who are at the top of their field of industry and actually ask them how they got there, few will tell you that it was because they were “just lucky”. No, they will tell you of their struggle, their sacrifices, and their previous setbacks. What I’m saying is that if you are truly in your heart passionate about a specific career, then what you need to focus on is being the one in the statistic, and forget about whether it is out of a hundred, a thousand, a million, or however many billions.

Living with passion

So far I have only spoken about work, but for most people work is only one important aspect of living, not the most important. And I think the whole question of “what career is best for me?” is better rephrased into the key question “what do I want a career to give me?” There are many ways to live a life and many different types of jobs out there, but only a person can decide for themselves what role a job plays in their life with regards to satisfaction, overall life goals, etc.

For the greatest majority of people our goal in life is to be happy and not to be miserable. If you have a passion in life, a passion without which your life will seem miserable to you, then you have an overwhelming desire to fulfil this one task. If that is you, then you (have to) become the person who won’t take no for an answer. You become the kind of person that doesn’t believe in failure only as-yet-unsuccessful attempts. You have to become resilient and keep trying until you can attain the “job” of your dreams. And note that by “job” I mean any task in life that you are passionate about; could be a paid job, could be to be a mother, could be to create something, it could be anything at all. But I can tell you that living with passion is such an empowering and enriching way to think of life. You could die trying to succeed and know that you’ve already succeeded!