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by Carol James
If you do the work you love, you will love the work you do.
Sounds simple enough, but is it? Does our
culture really support and encourage people to choose a career \
based on what they love? While
moving through our educational system, how many opportunities are we
given to uncover and to explore our natural talents, abilities,
intelligences and knowing and to learn how to apply them to our true
calling? Do our schools teach us how to find and pursue our purpose
in life and to follow our passions?
Most of us grow up in an environment where our parents, teachers,
school counselors or friends all seem to know what is best for us.
They are quick to tell us which career we are best suited for and
what skills and education we should acquire to pursue that career,
all without taking the time to find out who we really are or what is
in our hearts. We are encouraged to prepare for the jobs that pay
the highest, that have the most security, that follow our parents'
professions or that are in most abundant supply. And because we
usually do what they suggest, we empower them to decide how we will
spend the largest portion of our life.
Then there is the other side of the coin in which we are given no
guidance whatsoever. We are not encouraged to develop potentials
that poke their heads above the surface, and often those potentials
drift aimlessly away. Art was one of those potentials for me. As a
child I always had my nose in a coloring book, and my greatest
thrill was coloring the costumes that a friend would create for my
paper dolls. My artistic pursuits were mostly hidden in the privacy
of my world, rarely exposed to others criticism, until I took an art
class as an elective in tenth grade. Wham! A whole new World opened
up to me as my creative spirit soared and my latent talent
flourished.
Of course, I must credit my teacher, Mr. Dubia (I am amazed that
after all these years - 35 to be precise - that I can still not only
recall his name but his vivacious spirit and exuberant way of
bringing art to life.), for discovering my hidden talent and for
nurturing it in ways that allowed it to flourish. Once I latched
onto the joys of exploring my artistic abilities, I was obsessed,
filling all my elective courses with art classes. By my senior year
I had completed all the classes that the school had to offer, so
they graciously allowed me to continue my artistic endeavors in the
art department as a teacher's aid.
Unfortunately, things came crashing down in twelfth grade when I
was interviewed for an art scholarship. Because of my upbringing I
was extremely shy and inhibited and through art I had finally found
a way to express my inner soul. I was passionate about art and
wanted to study only art, but in a four-year college it was
mandatory that I study all those required courses. I refused to
waste my time studying stuff that held no interest for me. Even back
then I understood that if one wasn't interested in a given subject,
then trying to make one learn it was a waste of time and energy, as
those long forgotten classes that I was forced to take in high
school have proven.
Back then, I saw no other option: To continue my art studies I
would have to go to a four-year college and take all that other
stuff - courses that were as uninteresting to me as eating bugs -
just so that I could continue to pursue my passion. I refused to
budge. The college refused to budge. Thus ended my career in art.
Of course, you might be wondering why I didn't pursue art on my
own if I was so passionate about it. Well, I did. I painted for
years, but it didn't pay the rent or make the car payment, so I
found myself a real job and joined the ranks of the employed. My
artistic dreams ended when a so-called critic told me my talent was
non-existent, and my confidence crashed to the floor. Whether he was
right or not is immaterial, because I believed him to be right and
lost my passion.
That's what started my aimless jump from career to career
searching for something to rekindle that passion. Too bad career
counseling wasn't fashionable back then. But then, in the world of
career counseling, there tends to be a prevalent belief that you
must prepare yourself for the jobs that are most abundant - those
jobs that are in demand; for instance computer programming,
engineering, etc. - or jobs for which you already have some
training. Forget about doing what you love, forget about following
the urges of your heart, forget about pursuing that which extends
from your natural talents and abilities, because it is more
important to have a job, any job, that pays well, that offers
security, that is recognized as appropriate by others and for which
there are plenty of openings.
The biggest problem with doing what is expected or what is
popular is that we usually end up sticking with a job that is only
marginally satisfying, then live a life filled with complaints and
regrets. I've observed this trap up close and personal, watching my
father put in the hours, laboring at a job that brought him little
satisfaction, that didn't challenge him, that didn't offer him the
opportunity to explore his capabilities in any meaningful way and
that didn't allow him to use his natural talents and abilities. I
watched him labor for 35 years in a job that he hated. That hate
drove him to drink, literally, and drove him to such great anger and
resentment that it eventually poisoned his body along with his
personality.
Why did he do this? Why does anyone stay in a job that they hate
or that is a dead end or that is unfulfilling? Because the job pays
the rent, because it supports a lifestyle that one is afraid to give
up, because it offers security, because it is expected. In the case
of my father, my mother was so focused on the extra retirement pay
that my father's job would supply, that she bullied him into staying
in a job that he hated. Why did he allow her to bully him? I'll
probably never know why, other than to suspect that he thought it
was his duty to provide for the family, no matter what the cost. At
work he counted the hours until he could go home and crash, first
taking a pit stop at the local bar to take the edge off his stress,
then landing home exhausted and ill-tempered at the end of the day.
He marked off days on the calendar until he could retire,
impatiently waiting for the day when he could finally take it easy,
and do . . . do what? The answer was to do nothing, to take it easy,
to be a person of leisure and pursue his passions and hobbies.
His anger and resentment battered his body, initially pounding it
with high blood pressure and hypertension, then segueing into
borderline diabetes. A year after retiring my father had a stroke
which ended his dreams of a leisurely life, and progressed his
journey into the world of illness and disease as one problem after
another attacked his body. Did he enjoy the retirement for which he
gave up his joy of life? I think not. He spent his entire retirement
going from one illness to another - after the stroke came
insulin-dependent adult diabetes followed swiftly by a leg
amputation, a heart attack and other assorted ills - until finally,
after nearly 15 years of sickness, he finally fell down, broke his
hip, and gave up and died. What a sad price he paid to do what was
expected.
Watching my father's hate, anger, resentment and subsequent
physical deterioration, I swore that I would never stay at any job
that didn't bring me satisfaction and fulfillment. He stayed at a
job that ended up destroying his life and he was not alone. The
majority of people hate their job, or at best, find it unrewarding,
unfulfilling or unchallenging. Is it any wonder why people are so
stressed out and plagued by disease and chronic illness?
In the beginning of my working career, I, too, followed his
patterning, staying in a job for nearly 6 years that paid extremely
well, that had benefits up the wazoo and that was so secure that I
would have had to blow up the building to ever get fired. While my
security quotient was extremely high, I spent tremendous amounts of
time feeling unfulfilled, feeling unappreciated, feeling frustrated,
feeling bored and feeling useless. So I quit. Everyone told me that
I was crazy. I had tremendous pressure from my parents, from my
friends, from my boss and from my co-workers to reconsider my
decision and to not throw away my life. Thank goodness I didn't
listen.
I took a stand and overcame the first problem inherent in
choosing to do what one loves: What will other people think or say?
It is my nature to want to please other people, as I know it is
others' nature, too, and my choice to follow my own purpose and
passion in life often went against what others thought I should do.
In their well-meaning way, they tried to convince me of the
foolishness of my desire to leave my secure and well-paying job to
do what I loved. But they didn't seem to understand my need for
professional fulfillment (perhaps they had given up on their own
need to be fulfilled), and they automatically assumed that I would
fail. Eventually I discovered that what was really going on with
them was that they couldn't imagine succeeding if they had chucked
their job to do what they loved, and so they were projecting their
own fears onto me.
Pause and Ponder
Has that happened to you? Have your family, friends or counselors
pressured you to do the right thing and choose a job that THEY felt
was best for you? Have you had others tell you that you would fail
if you chose to follow your heart? Have you listened to them? If you
think that other people's opinions of your ability to succeed holds
more validity than your own inner knowing, then perhaps they are
right and you should stay in your safe job. If you don't believe
that you can succeed, then most likely you are right, you can't.
If, on the other hand, your desire to have a more rewarding and
fulfilling career outweighs your fear of failure or rejection, then
the next question to answer is, What would I love to do? Finding the
answer to that question will take some exploration into yourself to
discover who you are and who you want to be. For me, I didn't have
the advantage of someone to help me discover what was in my heart,
so it took a dozen more jobs, a variety of different careers and a
failed business for me to find my way. Eventually I discovered that
I had been barking up the wrong trees and looking in the wrong
direction for professional fulfillment. Eventually I discovered how
to find my niche in life, how to know what I really wanted to do
with my life and how to go about reaching my goals.
Pause and Ponder
So here you are at a crossroads in your life, trying to decide
what is more important: staying with your current professional
circumstances or take the leap into doing what you love. Basically,
there are three directions to follow:
Do what is expected of you by your parents, teachers, counselors
or peers
Do what is popular, pays the best or offers the most security
Do what naturally extends from who you are and find your niche in
life
Which one do you think will bring you the greatest job and life
satisfaction and fulfillment?
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