Though it isn't scientifically official, for all intensive purposes the summer has come to an end. I started teaching my classes this week and though I didn't think it was possible, it appears I had actually forgotten how much I love my job. It is like I'm on a social high or something when I leave a successful class.
I drive home with the windows down (the good weather could be helping to improve my mood) good music playing and I feel like I am just so happy with everything. The sun is beautiful, the music makes me want to dance, and not even stop and go traffic can pull me down too far.
The other day my husband pointed out that engineers seem to want to know immediately what people do, what their profession or major is. It is like they need to categorize them and this is the information that will tell them most about that person. While I agree that engineers might have a particular enthusiasm for this, it is actually something that lots of people do- at least in America.
When you meet someone new the question is bound to come up. While some of it could be widdled down to basic conversation making, I think there is more to it than that. Ideally, your job should say something about you. We expect it to, but so often it doesn't. Even more so, (or at least more lately I've noticed) people seem to need to add whether they like their job or dislike their job or if it is only temporary. Perhaps because we know we are defined by what we do.
But I can't help but wonder what the world would be like if no one had to qualify. If everyone just simply loved their jobs and we expected them to.
So many people think of a job as a means to an end PERIOD. Something to support them, but nothing to get all worked up over (no pun intended). But you should love your job. Certainly, we must sometimes take jobs we don't want to, but shouldn't we also be in a constant search to find the one that fits, that truly makes us smile, that makes us drive with the windows down and want to pull over the car and tweet so that everyone knows just how lovely the world is capable of being? Then later become sad because we remember not everyone knows this feeling?
Your job is where you spend most of your time and what you spend most of your time doing. Even if you hate it, it effects you.
I have not always believed to go after the job that you enjoy the most. I once thought I should seek the most practical or the one that would be easiest to work my way into. It took me some time to come to grips with the idea that work and enjoyment did not need to be separate entities. That being a "work-aholic" didn't need to be negative.
When you love your job, you love the other aspects of your life a little more too. You don't dread Mondays or pray for Fridays. You can enjoy the weekend for what it is and not constantly be anxious of its quick passing. You're not stressed or cranky and you can come home and look at things in a fresher light.
I am so glad I have found something I enjoy so throughly. Certainly there are other things I like. I LIKE face painting and drawing caricatures (how I contributed to our living this summer). So much so, I'm going to try to do it now and then while I continue to teach. But I don't love it. Not like teaching.
Now, certainly everyday isn't a happy parade home and I'm not going to claim I don't ever complain about my workload. But I will note it takes a lot more of it before I start in than jobs I have held in the past.
I have experienced both ends of it. I had a job a hated. It felt like my soul was being sucked out every time I went in. I had trouble rising in the morning because I didn't want to go. My weekends felt like dreams, the groggy kind, because I was somehow able to forget what I did Monday through Friday but it always felt like I was living on borrowed time.
It is not that I am too emotionally involved in my work. I've had plenty of jobs I could take or leave or that I liked or didn't like so well, but there have only been two occasions that I have felt so extreme - when I was whole heartedly dissatisfied and when I was so incredibly happy. And it was the work. The people had little to do with it. The job I hated I actually really liked everyone I worked with. This job, the job I love, I actually don't get to meet that many of my co-workers, though I have liked those I've met, there hasn't been that same level of familiarity as I had at the other location. And beleive me, it isn't that all my students are angels.
I wish everyone could achieve this. That everyone could know the difference it makes to truly love what you do. I know that life has obstacles and we can't always do what we want. But we can try. We can search. We can make arrangements and yes, occasionally sacrifices. And many of us are not as trapped as we think we are.
A student of mine told me his father always raised him to beleive that the greatest obstacle he would ever face was himself. There's a lot of truth in that belief.
Of course, there is the issue of not knowing. I didn't KNOW I'd love teaching so much until I did it. I had no suspicions that I'd hate the other job either. The only way to know is to try. Do different things. Attempt to experience the world around us. And to support others who do find what they like. To try and not balk when a 45 year old man makes a career change or a 50 year old woman returns to college.
So they got a late start, who cares? It's never too late. (Unless, I suppose your dream job has an age restriction, but even then there are ways to become involved.)
Strangely enough, a Mad Men character (I say strangely because so many of those characters are dissatisfied in life) said about finding a good job was to "discover what needs to be done and become the person who does it." I'm sure this isn't an original idea (I think my dad has uttered similar things), but it is great advice. This may seem different than what I am saying, and it is, but it is a place to start. Perhaps if you try thinking about it as "discover what you love and make it appeal to others" or "discover what you love and become the one who does it." I will admit I'm having difficulty expressing precisely what I mean, but I beleive history has shown that if you love something and become good at it, really good at it, you can make money at anything. And to become really good at something, you usually have to have some kind of passion for it. At least in the start. You have to have the passion to back your idea.
Lucky for me, my job always existed and I just happened to find it, but I know there may be people out there who need to create their place in the world. History has shown that a lot is predictable, but it has also shown that much of what we beleive impossible eventually always proves to not be.
I feel that a lot of my post lately have been instructive - do or try this to find happiness or see another prospective. I really don't mean to do that so much. I know everyone is different. So this time, I am simply going to leave you with these ideas. With the image of someone clocking out from work with a smile on their face, feeling so light and full of life they could soar home through the clouds.
I drive home with the windows down (the good weather could be helping to improve my mood) good music playing and I feel like I am just so happy with everything. The sun is beautiful, the music makes me want to dance, and not even stop and go traffic can pull me down too far.
The other day my husband pointed out that engineers seem to want to know immediately what people do, what their profession or major is. It is like they need to categorize them and this is the information that will tell them most about that person. While I agree that engineers might have a particular enthusiasm for this, it is actually something that lots of people do- at least in America.
When you meet someone new the question is bound to come up. While some of it could be widdled down to basic conversation making, I think there is more to it than that. Ideally, your job should say something about you. We expect it to, but so often it doesn't. Even more so, (or at least more lately I've noticed) people seem to need to add whether they like their job or dislike their job or if it is only temporary. Perhaps because we know we are defined by what we do.
But I can't help but wonder what the world would be like if no one had to qualify. If everyone just simply loved their jobs and we expected them to.
So many people think of a job as a means to an end PERIOD. Something to support them, but nothing to get all worked up over (no pun intended). But you should love your job. Certainly, we must sometimes take jobs we don't want to, but shouldn't we also be in a constant search to find the one that fits, that truly makes us smile, that makes us drive with the windows down and want to pull over the car and tweet so that everyone knows just how lovely the world is capable of being? Then later become sad because we remember not everyone knows this feeling?
Your job is where you spend most of your time and what you spend most of your time doing. Even if you hate it, it effects you.
I have not always believed to go after the job that you enjoy the most. I once thought I should seek the most practical or the one that would be easiest to work my way into. It took me some time to come to grips with the idea that work and enjoyment did not need to be separate entities. That being a "work-aholic" didn't need to be negative.
When you love your job, you love the other aspects of your life a little more too. You don't dread Mondays or pray for Fridays. You can enjoy the weekend for what it is and not constantly be anxious of its quick passing. You're not stressed or cranky and you can come home and look at things in a fresher light.
I am so glad I have found something I enjoy so throughly. Certainly there are other things I like. I LIKE face painting and drawing caricatures (how I contributed to our living this summer). So much so, I'm going to try to do it now and then while I continue to teach. But I don't love it. Not like teaching.
Now, certainly everyday isn't a happy parade home and I'm not going to claim I don't ever complain about my workload. But I will note it takes a lot more of it before I start in than jobs I have held in the past.
I have experienced both ends of it. I had a job a hated. It felt like my soul was being sucked out every time I went in. I had trouble rising in the morning because I didn't want to go. My weekends felt like dreams, the groggy kind, because I was somehow able to forget what I did Monday through Friday but it always felt like I was living on borrowed time.
It is not that I am too emotionally involved in my work. I've had plenty of jobs I could take or leave or that I liked or didn't like so well, but there have only been two occasions that I have felt so extreme - when I was whole heartedly dissatisfied and when I was so incredibly happy. And it was the work. The people had little to do with it. The job I hated I actually really liked everyone I worked with. This job, the job I love, I actually don't get to meet that many of my co-workers, though I have liked those I've met, there hasn't been that same level of familiarity as I had at the other location. And beleive me, it isn't that all my students are angels.
I wish everyone could achieve this. That everyone could know the difference it makes to truly love what you do. I know that life has obstacles and we can't always do what we want. But we can try. We can search. We can make arrangements and yes, occasionally sacrifices. And many of us are not as trapped as we think we are.
A student of mine told me his father always raised him to beleive that the greatest obstacle he would ever face was himself. There's a lot of truth in that belief.
Of course, there is the issue of not knowing. I didn't KNOW I'd love teaching so much until I did it. I had no suspicions that I'd hate the other job either. The only way to know is to try. Do different things. Attempt to experience the world around us. And to support others who do find what they like. To try and not balk when a 45 year old man makes a career change or a 50 year old woman returns to college.
So they got a late start, who cares? It's never too late. (Unless, I suppose your dream job has an age restriction, but even then there are ways to become involved.)
Strangely enough, a Mad Men character (I say strangely because so many of those characters are dissatisfied in life) said about finding a good job was to "discover what needs to be done and become the person who does it." I'm sure this isn't an original idea (I think my dad has uttered similar things), but it is great advice. This may seem different than what I am saying, and it is, but it is a place to start. Perhaps if you try thinking about it as "discover what you love and make it appeal to others" or "discover what you love and become the one who does it." I will admit I'm having difficulty expressing precisely what I mean, but I beleive history has shown that if you love something and become good at it, really good at it, you can make money at anything. And to become really good at something, you usually have to have some kind of passion for it. At least in the start. You have to have the passion to back your idea.
Lucky for me, my job always existed and I just happened to find it, but I know there may be people out there who need to create their place in the world. History has shown that a lot is predictable, but it has also shown that much of what we beleive impossible eventually always proves to not be.
I feel that a lot of my post lately have been instructive - do or try this to find happiness or see another prospective. I really don't mean to do that so much. I know everyone is different. So this time, I am simply going to leave you with these ideas. With the image of someone clocking out from work with a smile on their face, feeling so light and full of life they could soar home through the clouds.
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