Why Seeking A Meaningful Career Is Bad Advice
Today, there are no flowery introductions, no background information to give and no anecdotes to tell (I’ll even spare you the details of the cute guy I met while white water rafting here the other day in Costa Rica)–today, it’s straight to the point:
You don’t have a career. What you’ve got is a glorified version of a job.
The term “career” is nothing more than a fancy linguistic trick designed to make you believe that what you’re doing is more meaningful than just some job, but in essence, they are the same: Whether you develop cutting edge proposals for high-value clients (ohhh, ahhh!) or you spend your days removing dirty plates from tables, you are, in both cases, performing a task in exchange for money.
But career just sounds so much better, doesn’t it? It implies that you’ve selected this path and therefore are engaged, dedicated and glad to be doing what you’re doing. More importantly, using the term “career” communicates your social status to others; it indirectly says, “I have the luxury of choosing the way I’m going to spend 8-10 hours each day. I even get a whole hour for lunch….suckaaas!”
Surely, the term career can mean that you’ve spent time training for Job Title X, and hence you are highly skilled. An expert. A specialist. A professional. But it becomes less attractive when, in spending so much time training for our “career”–otherwise known as a job we do because we like it (or thought we would) more than others–we use it to form our identities of who we are as people.
Ask someone about themselves, and they’ll default to a job-title description first, usually followed by where they’re from and what they’re doing, but not a lot on who they actually ARE. “You are what you do” is a bunch of crap–I do not believe that we are a product of the tasks we perform, but rather in the experiences we’ve had. Therefore, perhaps instead of “you are what you do,” maybe it should read “you are what you’ve learned.”
But wait, isn’t the advice du jour “Do What You Love?”
By attaching our identities to the jobs we perform, in an effort to seek meaning for ourselves, we erroneously seek meaning in our jobs. At first glance, this seems like a noble & worthwhile goal; however, it’s reached a point in which it now backfires on us. Now, the only way we know how to find meaning is through the job functions we perform. We define ourselves by it, use it as a source of pride, sacrifice for it and devote our lives to it; as such, we become one in the same.
The problem with that is that is its potential to make us painstakingly narrow human beings. There are so many things that you are, and so many worthwhile things to explore and derive meaning from than some arbitrary task you perform. A favorite quote of mine by United States author, Henry Miller:
“Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music – the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people.”
What inspired this post has been the last month I’ve been here in Central America. Where I’m based out of, on the Central Pacific coast of Costa Rica, there is no such thing as a career. People work typically from 6am to 2pm, or from 2pm to 10pm in hotels, restaurants and any other number of tourist industries, and none of the jobs are particularly glamourous. However, they’re more than grateful to have one at all, and you never hear anyone complaining about having to go to work.
That said, they also don’t associate their self-worth with what they do for money, and tend to be less bitter because of it; to them, a job is simply what you do to survive, and there’s no other meaning in it than that. Instead, they find meaning outside of their work, in places like their families, friendships and social connections. Meet a person here and ask them about themselves, and they will never respond first with, “Oh, I’m a receptionist at X hotel,” but rather “I’m so and so’s cousin, I live over in X neighborhood. As a matter of fact, we’re having a birthday party for my grandmother tonight–want to come?” As an interesting side note, if I meet someone and ask what they do in Spanish, “Que haces?” they will tell me what they’ve got on their agenda for the day, NOT what they do for a living. In order to find out where they work, I’ve got literally got to ask what they do for work, “En que trabajas?” However, if I ask the same question, “What do you do?” in English, you know that I am asking about what you do for a living. Yet another cruel linguistic trick that is highly reflective of our values.
I’ve observed a drastic shift in priorities, from those of the United States, and, frankly, despite the fact that many of the local workers here earn no more than $2/hour, I find myself envying them. They are free from judgments about who they are based on what they do for a living, and as such, are free from the pressure that we knowingly or unknowingly put on ourselves. They happily put in their 8 hours, and thereafter work is over–they are free to spend the remainder of their day engaging in activities they love with the people they love. No one brings their work home with them; no one is missing out on their daughter’s childhood in a vain attempt to work overtime; no one is stressed, hurried and frantically rushing through life. They are happy to just be, and are fully aware of how to embrace pleasure, and use that to find meaning.
The conclusion?
I’d rather have a job over a career any day…suckaaas.
P.S. If you didn’t get a chance to see my latest guest post over at Josh Hanagarne’s site, The World’s Strongest Librarian, check it out–it’s completely off the wall and on a topic that I don’t usually discuss here: Sex!
Post Footer automatically generated by wp-posturl plugin for wordpress.
If you liked that jazz. . .check out some of these:
Filed Under: Life Inspiration • Philosophy, baby • Society & Culture • Travel Related
About the Author: Ashley Ambirge is the sarcastic, brash, hot-sauce-addicted founder of The Middle Finger Project, where she gives the evil eye to mediocrity, fervently questions societal assumptions, and aims to inspire readers to flip a cordial bird to the shoulds, and live how they want.
Whiskey shots strictly optional.
I feel like it's ok to mix your life goals and work. This is after getting tested by the Johnson O'Connor Foundation.
While you're probably against taking what test tell you to do literally, the results are a little different; they only tell you what you have a natural aptitude for and leave the rest up to you. I'm great at planning things long-term (and using big words?) and if I don't feel like my daily tasks are accomplishing anything that has to do with my goal in life, I will perpetually feel unfulfilled. And the director told me to find something I cared about deeply and incorporate steps towards it in my life.
This basically went along with what you told me about seeking out my life goals. At this juncture, I'm going to look into water filtration, purification, and distribution. Of course my mother told me immediately, “Too bad you don't want to be an engineer! That could help!”
To which I responded, “Mom, engineering requires spatial visualization, which I scored really low on and I'd be completely miserable as an engineer because thinking about things in 2-D in 3-D all the time would be a nightmare and give me a headache. I would perpetually go around in life as drained as I was right after they tested me in that, and you'd hear complaints much like the ones you heard after I had to do the Wiggly Block.” (That is not a fun dance; that is a puzzle nightmare.)
And Daddy, who is an electrical engineer, tells me that instead of doing water filtration/purification/distribution [which they admit they knew about since forever because of me building wells in Vietnam when I was small...(er)], I should take the other suggestion about being a consultant because I can make $150/300 an hour just telling other people how to make things more efficient.
And I nodded while I covertly thought of different majors that I could switch to when I get back to school.
When you hit the States, I would suggest that you take a look at the Foundation and see if you want to be tested. They'll tell you a lot of things that you already know, like: “Wow, you generate a lot of ideas quickly and are able to think of new solutions and new things to do” and “If you stifle your natural innate desire to create, to write, to express yourself, you will become very frustrated by life in general and career-hop aimlessly, because financial gains can only motivate you so far before you suffocate” and “You should be a tutor and an editor, which you listed here on your entrance forms….oh.”
And then other stuff that you haven't reallly thought about like, “You have a lot of artistic ability, but no dexterity, so you should take some art history or photography classes and see how they go.”
And heartbreaking things like, “The reason why you took 10 years of piano plus 2 years of violin and yet cannot sightread is that you don't have innate aptitude for doing musical stuff. You've gotten where you are through hard work, though, so that should be a comfort, right? It's ok to keep it as a hobby, though!”
Hey Ashley,
Although I'm actually getting some things accomplished at work today, I'm reading all your old posts in between! I had to laugh at your idea to tell people you were a prison guard. Although my “career” is PR and Marketing, I was once laid off and couldn't find a new “career” in the PR field, so I went through my local police academy and became a corrections officer (preferred term vs. prison guard). Although I only did this “job” for about 2 years, it's one of the first things that people want to discuss when I mention it. Funny how no one wants to talk about the latest marketing techniques or how to write a better media release…BTW, do you think a stripper, prostitue, counterfeiter or any other person who makes his or her money in a “non-traditional” way (no pun intended with the counterfieter reference) considers what they do a “career” or a “job?” Why do we always have to “be” what we “do?”
Thanks for the inspirational post. I spent 10 yrs pursuing a career and money. Then I managed to spend the last 10 yrs w/out working a regular job. I am now at a crossroads as to whether to pursue financial security by re-entering the conventional workforce, or continuing on an unconventional journey into the unknown. I appreciate your passion and irreverence. There is so much more to life than one's career. Being bound by materialism is a trap to keep people working in jobs they hate to pay for things they don't need. I am determined to view each day as an adventure, and not just live for weekends and vacations.