Today, I read an article written by a man who told his wife he loved her after their second date. He fully believed it at the time, in the throes of passion and infatuation, and only later realized it probably wasn’t true–at least not at the time he said it. He realized this after marriage, money issues, and children made love feel like a long forgotten emotion. After all, songs are rarely written about arguing over how to decorate the living room or where to spend the holidays.
As usual, I then wondered how this applied to careers, and the answer came to me fairly quickly. Growing up, we believe we’re going to find that one perfect career for us. Finding it is the true journey, or so we think, and figuring out what we want to do with our lives is the biggest problem we face. Is that really true, though?
What if you love your day to day responsibilities but generally dislike all of your coworkers? What if you find the perfect job, but it’s hours away from the people you love? Maybe you love your coworkers and the location, but the pay and hours spent working leave you little time for any other part of your life.
The journey, in my opinion, isn’t in finding the perfect career. It’s coming to respect and appreciate the imperfectness of every situation. Wedding days, graduations, children’s births–all of these events make us feel like we’re on top of the world and life will only get better. But the truth is, life only gets more complicated. We realize we went to college for four years to become an accountant but really we wanted to be a teacher all along. Children keep us up at night, first as babies, and later as teenagers who have us worried. We realize that planning a wedding wasn’t the biggest part of the journey–the day after the honeymoon ended was when the real challenges (and the joy that comes with working through those challenges) began.
Your career will be an ever evolving entity. As you grow and change, your values and interests will do the same. Some days, your dream job might feel like a nightmare and there will be times you question whether you’ve chosen the right path. By learning to respect the tension between where you are and where you want to be (personally and professionally) you can better appreciate the good times and better cope with the bad.
Filed under: Career Tips Tagged: careers, careers and happiness, coping with difficult times, dream jobs, evolution, journey, marriage, proactive professional, relationships, relocating, weddings
