What is your dream job? Money is no object. No matter what you pick, you will make enough to live comfortably. Just take earnings out of the equation. I'm trying to dial down to what job, regardless of pay potential, would make you happy just by the sheer act of performing it. Think about it. I mean, REALLY think about it. There is no interview process. You will get the job. There are no other candidates. You must go to work and do the job for at least 40 hours a week. But pick wisely. You have only this one chance to choose your dream job. Once you pick, that's it. Of course you can quit, but then you're back in the real world and must pick from an available slew of jobs that the market dictates. There will be other candidates and the pay is the pay. Think about it long enough? Okay, here we go....
Here's your schedule. Here's two days off a week. Heres nine hours a day, plus a one hour lunch. Here's your benefits package and your pay. Here are the tools, the training and the know-how to do your job effectively. Now, lets get to work!
What did you pick? I know, it's a tough decision. Well what are your hobbies? Do you like to paint? Do you like to play golf? What do you truly enjoy doing? Make it your job, right? WRONG! Anything you like doing, will turn to dislike when it becomes a job. When an activity turns into a non-optional grind, it becomes a chore. There's a reason the phrase "the grass is always greener" is a phrase to begin with, and it illustrates my point perfectly. Human nature is to always think there's something better. No one is ever truly happy with anything they have. It makes me ask what is the point? Let's put aside the job debate just for a moment and really try to consider exactly what it is that would make you truly happy. It's likely a different thing for all of us. But let's really consider it for a moment. For some people it's stuff. I would be happy if I had a 90" television. I would be happy if I had a large house. I would really be content if I had a new car. How long does the happiness that comes from stuff last? It's a pretty brief feeling a accomplishment, a euphoric blink into happiness. But now you have that thing that you said would make you happy. What now? Now you want something else. But I thought that after you got that thing you wanted, you'd be happy, content to live out the rest of your life without another desire? Nope. Guess again. What many people don't realize is that it's not the thing, job, or concept that you get a feeling of happiness from. It's the journey. It's the journey and then at the end, the accomplishment of acquiring the rewards from the journey. Once you have arrived, once you have acquired that holy grail of what you were after, you begin to get thirsty again. Not for the thing, but for the chase.
Back to your dream job. Back to the grind. Be there at nine o'clock sharp! Don't be late. Now you must perform! A job is a place where you provide a service or product for--and here's the rub---someone else. Someone else tells you what to do. You don't have the freedom you thought you had. It's not a hobby anymore, it's a profession. You have deadlines, there is pressure, there is stress. Perform! Get it done. I've always thought that my dream job would be to write fiction for a living. Yes, a novelist! How great would it be to make up stories all day and get paid for it? But think about it. I would have a deadline. There would be pressure to deliver. I don't care if you're feeling under the weather today, CREATE A STORY YOU SON OF A BITCH! CREATE! Same deal with painting or anything that takes a creative touch. You no longer get to do it when the desire moves you to do it. You must deliver. CREATE! We hold these things on a pedestal, because we see the result, not the work of these jobs. I went to college with a music scholarship and figured out pretty quickly that, while I wanted that life, the ability to perform on stage in front of an audience that would enjoy it, that I wasn't willing to do what it took to get me there. I was not willing to spend nine to ten hours a day alone in a practice room. I was not willing to digest volumes of music theory when not in class. I was not willing to practice scales all day to learn the different keys inside out, manage alternate fingerings and rehearse nuances of pitch and volume. I just wanted to perform. But one cannot perform without the hard work that creates the end result. We see jobs for the prestige but not for the grind. It's all a grind. It all becomes a grind. At the point when someone tells you you HAVE to do it, when it is no longer an option you have decided for yourself, it becomes a job. You are now doing whatever it is for someone other than yourself.
The grass is always greener. Keep your hobbies your hobbies. Do them in your spare time because that's what you choose to do with it. A job is work. A job is getting through the day, as happy as you can, while someone else tells you what you have to do. Your day on the job is a break from what you wish you could be doing instead. I have a hard time believing it when people tell me they love their job. Liars! A job is where you go to dream about doing something else that you would actually like doing. But remember: it's just a dream. The reality is different, and the journey of getting there is the magic. Happiness comes from growing. It comes from getting from point A to point B, not from simply staying on point B. If you stay on point B, you'll always wonder what the view looks like from point C. Well, dammit! Pack your bags! Get a move on! Point C isn't that far, you can do it! Your life will be perfect when you're at point C! Unfortunately, you can just barely spot point D off in the distance and WOW! that looks like a nice place to be. Pack your bags get a move on! It's not that far! Everything will be perfect at point D, I just know it! And so on.....see what I mean?
All I'm really trying to say here is enjoy the journey. Stop briefly to smell the flowers. Stay as long as you like, but keep growing. That is happiness. Don't forget that it's the journey that makes the trip, not the destination, because the destination will never be as glorious as the anticipation of it.
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