this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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[cynical rant – take with a bucket of salt]
you don’t
you pick something that you are competent at that pays the bills and keeps you alive and gives you enough free time to work on what you actually want to do
traditional boomer advice was to pick something you love, but after putting in endless hours of doing it over and over just to make enough to keep you fed and provide a place to sleep, you will grow to resent it with a passion – for your own mental health, you absolutely must maintain a separation between the job and your personal life
You should pick something that pays the bills and gives you free time to do what you want, but it’s good for it to be something you find some enjoyment in. Not necessarily something you love. But something you can get some level of satisfaction from learning and doing.
Yea that seems about right. I wanna find a job that I’ll be content enough with doing for at least 5-10 years, but not necessarily something I love. Something that pays the bills is very important since it’s what you need to survive and I also don’t want to be stuck in a career where I’m struggling to survive or have room for my hobbies and free time.
If you can find something you love that pays okay, though, do that.
The saying that "if you're doing something you love you'll never work a single day" is true. I mean you're still working but it feels way better than doing something just for money.
When you're just working for money it feels like an imposition and like work is taking you away from life. But when you're in a job that you love, your whole day feels like part of your life, like you get to enjoy everything.
I'll keep that in mind, thanks
I lucked into a great job in my field, but I also figured out what I wanted to do by 15 IIRC. So I could make it happen when the luck struck.
There's still "work stuff" like getting to meetings at a particular time I don't love, and some tedious stuff too. There's the HR training etc that's annoying. But day to day I also get to 'play' with stuff I could never afford as a hobby.
Even if you find what you love, and get a job doing it doesn't mean it's a great job. Pay attention to others, do they stick around, or are they bailing ASAP? Is there a functional HR department (often not in small business and there are some stories there)? Do management seem to have a clue, or are they crap with unrealistic deadlines and budgets? Be ready to still change jobs inside whatever fields you like and get into.
Also, like somebody else said, try and figure out if you have to go to college for your field. Or if there's an apprenticeship you need. The 'try a bunch of different things' isn't bad advice, but while you can become a roofer pretty easily, you're not trying out being a doctor...
Thank you. I'll be sure to remember that. I can see how the work environment can make or break a job.
yea, money is king. the feeling of relief when u find out u can afford ur medical bills by urself.
I’m shocked people seem to agree with this so much. While there are certainly circumstances where you don’t have much choice, spending your life in a job/career that doesn’t give you meaning and fulfillment will probably depress everyone sooner or later.
Many people don't find meaning and fulfillment through their jobs, and that's okay. No one is saying go out and find a job you hate just to pay the bills, but the advice of finding something you love so much that you'll feel like you've never worked a day in your life is inapplicable to most people. If you happen to be one of the few people in the world who love what you do, great. But the reality is that the vast majority of people do not make a career out of their passion, and that's just fine.
To OP, find a job you don't mind, one that gives you the right balance of money, time, and fulfillment in your life. Even if that fulfillment comes from things outside of work like hobbies, friends, family, or something else. And remember that the choices you make now are not set in stone. You can always change your mind later if you find you're not happy.
Yea, I'll be trying to do that. Find fulfillment from somewhere, whether it be my job, or somewhere else, or a little bit of both both. Thanks.
Nah, it's much better that way. I go to my job to get money, not to find purpose in life. My boss and employer does not get to dictate my fulfillment.
My job is my job, I use money from my job to go do stuff that has actual meaning to me.
You do you, but it would drain me too much to work a job just for the money if it doesn’t fulfill me in some way directly. I’d compare it to working a shit job your whole life with the goal to finally retire and enjoy life.
Only then, you’re too tired or have health problems, so you can’t enjoy life after all.
Are you working 80+ hours a week or something? If you have zero free time outside of work, I guess there's no room in your life to find any kind of meaning or purpose outside your job. Then you're left trying to find meaning in a shit job.
Trying to find a job that is "meaningful" that also pays the bills are few and far between. Most meaningful things in life don't pay well or at all, or have very few job openings, or are extremely unstable (self employment or startups). Otherwise you're left with your life "purpose" in a corporation, which only means "make more money", which is pretty shallow at best.
Work-life balance is important, and I think keeping work and life separate is a huge part of that. Forcibly mixing the two only causes more stress, either from one adding to the other, or from severely limiting your job prospects overall. Making your job = life severely limits both.
Please don’t take the following the wrong way as it’s not meant to be judgmental.
The fact that you can’t even imagine being employed somewhere AND having a fulfilling job at the same time shows quite some narrow-mindedness IMO. Maybe it’s from bad experience or some kind of ideological antiwork standpoint, I don’t know. But those jobs definitely exist, and it’s never as black and white.
Every job has its downsides, but I would argue there’s always potential to find something better than what any person currently has going for themselves.
Even with only 40 hours a week, a bit-fulfilling job would drain me too much, but I may be rather sensitive in that regard. As a result, I changed my career a few times, and for the first time in my life I feel like I’ve arrived in a place I can imagine doing for the rest of my life, while it also pays the bills.
It's not that I can't imagine it. It's just that it's so rare and difficult to find a job that also perfectly aligns with personal fulfillment that I consider it terrible advice.
Like, there's a reason there is a "starving artist" stereotype. The chances of "making it big" as an artist are pretty slim, and if I told an artistic kid to simply follow their passion and it'll work out, I'd be lying. I know some professional artists actually, and they said 80% of the job is basically marketing themselves and negotiating contracts, not making art... so even if they end up (technically) doing what they love, the job might not be what they expect.
You can consider yourself lucky that you managed to find something that works, but I would never advise a kid in high school to severely limit themselves at the starting line or to set unrealistic expectations.
Yeah but you see… it doesn’t have to be perfect, and it probably never is, especially in the beginning of one’s career.
Also, while it’s clear that artists have rarely ever had a good income (only post mortem), it’s not too hard to find meaning and joy in non-artistic jobs that would bore others to death. Be it a trade or theoretical physics. Maybe even working with customers in some way although it’s hard to imagine.
I just don’t like the fatalistic approach to life that because chances to find great work are supposedly slim, you shouldn’t even strive for that, and I hope you will find something good for yourself as well. Life is like a box of chocolates (sorry, cheesy LOL).
I agree - I loved art in high school and really wanted to be an illustrator. But I graduated in 08 (recession) and I didn't have the confidence to try to make it as a freelancer or whatever.
I ended up choosing a really boring path in office work because I just wanted to make sure I was inside at a computer while I was working. At first it was so depressing - I had built my identity around my artwork. But I eventually found a new field that I loved and transitioned into that thanks to skills and resources from my boring office experience - I'm really happy with it all today and don't regret anything.
I guess what I'm saying is that I've found happiness/success by disconnecting my identity from my occupation and focusing on the work environment I want instead of the content of the work.
I’m not sure if this is how you meant it, but I take competent in a bad connotation. I am competent in many skills, but some of them I would despise doing on a daily basis. I would base it on what you’re good at and what you wouldn’t mind doing daily.