My dear friend and former college roommate Caitlin raised an interesting point recently over at her blog, WAKING LIFE.
She was talking about how refreshed and happy she’s been feeling lately and how she partially attributes that to the fact that she’s stopped trying to find fulfillment from her job. Though she works hard, she views the work mostly as a means to an end, and in adopting that approach, she’s found freedom. And as we all know, money may not buy you happiness but freedom sure does. Instead of looking for happiness at work, she’s started creating it in the non-work space of her life. Filling up her hours with music and art and food.
In some ways, I envy her this approach to life. I know it’s one that many people, perhaps even most people, adopt. Just pushing through to get to 5 o’clock. Living for the weekend. You know. Whether or not it’s a survival mechanism, it works for them. And I know it’s true that you can be less than thrilled with your job and still be really contented in life.
For some reason, last year I got this crazy notion that your job should (ideally) be your passion. That you should spend your days doing something you love doing. I knew that didn’t mean that some people couldn’t be happy in jobs that they didn’t love, but I was pretty sure I couldn’t be.
And so I set off on this grand adventure to find my passion, yet here I am six months later, still unsure of where my passions lie, cloudy on the point of what I want to do with my life (or if not with my life, at least with the foreseeable future), and I haven’t even found a way to make money doing things I at least know I enjoy. I’m disappointed and bit embarrassed to report that all I’ve gotten myself is a lot more confused and whole lot more broke. (Damn it!)
So when I came across Caitlin’s post I thought, that’s what I should do! Give myself the freedom to not find my purpose and my fulfillment in what I do for work. Maybe I don’t have a passion. Maybe I just have interests. (I’ve always been a little averse to the word passion in this context anyways.) Maybe I can entertain those interests in my spare time and view my day job as just that – a day job. Not my life, just what I do with my day.
I’m not saying I can’t. And I’m not saying I won’t. But if I do adopt that approach, I think it will mean laying to rest a certain part of me that always hoped for better. That expected better. A little dreaming part of me, my romantic side. That little part thought I would grow up to have a great job that I love. Something that I excelled at. We all dream of that, right? Not just getting by, but being great?
I think about the examples of strong women in my life. Women who cared for their families and worked when they had to to make sure they had what they needed. They didn’t love their jobs but they didn’t really care. That wasn’t the point. It’s almost like a sacrifice but they wouldn’t see it that way. Maybe it’s a generational gap, but I can think of so many women who didn’t even factor in fulfillment when it came to their jobs. They would probably laugh at me for being so bent on this. Work is work, I imagine them saying. Stop trying to make it more than that.
And yet I have never been one to turn a blind eye on anything. I don’t bury feelings. If something is wrong, I want to talk about it. I think a lot. I analyze constantly. I strive to know myself and, once I understand something, I can’t just let it go. In fact I have a problem with letting go in general.
I guess it comes to this: if work can be a means to an end for you, then that’s great. I think there’s a strength and wisdom in that all its own. But if it can’t, if you need more, then you always will. And it will become impossible to deny that. I think I’m one of those contemplative “rare breeds” Nietzsche talks about in his stance on Work and boredom. I am one of those thinkers, one of those sensitive spirits. I do fear work without pleasure. I am choosy and hard to satisfy.
I just hope I don’t remain idle for too long.
There’s nothing wrong with either being passionate about your job or just being content and satisfied with it. We just have to figure out which best fits us and what we want out of life.
I wish we lived closer so I could chat with you about this stuff over coffee. I’m with you 100%.
Hey, cool!
I think this is definitely an interesting phenomenon that did not affect generations that came before us (at least not to the same degree). We want our work to be fun and fulfilling because, let’s face it–who wants to spend 40 hours of their lives doing something that feels like a complete waste of time and energy? Our time is far too precious for that.
I also think that it’s this sense that there is something better for us–that work should be play and play should be play and really we just all want to be playing all the time–that has our generation in a death grip of panic and immobility. I see it everywhere in my friends. They can’t decide what to do, so they do nothing. They glorify idleness in their minds as a retreat from the world of “the man” that the rest of us have to suffer through. And I used to envy them their freedom. But I want more than that in life–I don’t want to idle indefinitely in the gridlock of indecision!
By no means do I think of my current job as a long-term possibility. But my wants and needs have become much simpler–I want love, enough money to live on, eventually, a family (which will certainly take precedent over any work-related obligations), and the ability to travel. And if I cultivate my “passions” outside of the workplace, maybe I can convert those creative pursuits into a career–eventually. I think what our generation lacks most is patience. We have to build our lives slowly, but we were born into a world where instant gratification reigns supreme and we can’t stand to wait for anything.
You are a wonderful, creative woman with a loving husband and your whole, long life ahead of you. If you want your work to make you happy and give you purpose, bless you–you should! But don’t wear yourself down expecting it to happen right away.
Whew, sorry, that comment was practically a post in itself. The point is, you’ve got some time! While the rest of us are worrying about finding the perfect mate AND the perfect place to live AND the perfect job, you’ve knocked two of those out the park already! You’re way ahead of the rest of us
You might want to check out @jenny_blake’s recent post: http://www.lifeaftercollege.org/blog/
Babe: I think Caitlin is right on the money. I have worked hard all my life and generally, I have been fortunate to have jobs that have allowed me to be my personal best. But, was ever single day of every single job full of fun, excitement and passion….absolutely not! I never had the option of not working since I was single until the age of 33.I had to work to survive and I would have taken any job in order to make ends meet and in order to be able to enjoy the people and things I enjoy. For me work has sometimes been what I was doing in order to support the lifestyle and the dreams I had and that was OK for me. Sometimes work has to be something we do to fill the time and to pay the bills and to pay for our pleasures. I think that right now that is what you should find in the way of a job. And, you nver know what else you may discover in the process. I do know that sitting alone overthinking every hour of every day rarely gets us even close to the kind of discovery we need. Leave the future and passion aside for a while and find something that gets you interacting with others and maybe making some extra income too. And, most of all remember we love you and so do lots of people!!!