We’re being offered fun workplaces, happiness at work, fulfillment through a successful career. A life that is mostly built around professional growth, the amazing wonders of working at “that tech company, you know that company that was chosen as best workplace for 3 years in a row”.
Or maybe you’re one of those that wrongly believe they’re an entrepreneur, fleeing from one incubator to another, one conference to the other and believing that reading about successful people will one day turn you into one.
My only solid conclusion from life at this point — I’m still young, yeah, so this is all debatable— is that if you’re bound to do something, it will attract you when you first see it, see someone do it or even hear about it. If nothing does, then you’re either a prick or you haven’t found it yet, so keep looking.
But a career cannot make you happy, a career is there to support your passions, your hobbies, to help you achieve dreams that are independent from your career plan. If you’ve found a job that makes your heart beat every morning, then you’re one of the lucky and rare ones (Just like a unicorn, but I don’t believe in those so some of you might be full of it).
Funny things is that in this day and age, we’re groomed from our birth to find a vocation, something we love doing. It’s no surprise one of the questions we ask prepubescent children that have yet to go out in the world is generally:
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
And oh so amazed parents gather around and react in a frenzy of “Awws” and “Wows”. How cute, amirite?
And then you go through life, trying to find your way, your one and only purpose and some day you feel hopeless and you think you’ve wasted your life looking for something you can’t reach. Then what? Where do you go? What do you do?
Do you hide in the first idea that seems comfortable?
The first job that can guarantee enough money?
A career that is against your values?
I haven’t any answers, so when you’re reading this, imagine me in front of a computer screen slamming on my keys to write an article that is void of any purpose and that serves only one goal: Making you uncomfortable and ready to think.
