I don’t know what I want. Whether I sat in a university classroom, participated in a time-sucking student organization, or went to a club party I was never satisfied. “What am I doing with my life?” I asked myself. “What should I do with my life?”
Whenever you meet someone new in college you’re always asked for your name, your year, and your major. Your major is apparently a clue into what your career goals are, what you want to do with yourself after you graduate. When the conversation became about career goals, I was always uneasy. I still get uneasy.
I imagine conversations with non-student strangers are similar. They ask you what you do for a living and your answer automatically defines who you are. Once you’ve given the answer, you’re rarely asked what you want to do next or how you want to grow. Your career equates to your life. The end.
Or is it?
What should I do with my life?
I’ve asked myself this question a bajillion times before and I’m sure I will ask it at least a bajillion times more. But I wonder how much of my answer will be about my career choice versus my overall lifestyle choice.
Po Bronson, who wrote a book entitled What Should I Do With My Life?, was asked whether his book was about life or about careers. My question this week is how much of our lives are our career? Are they synonymous? Or should they be defined differently?
In my head, the problem relates to the prevelant societal idea of ‘earning a living’. (what a horrible phrase). No one should feel that they have to ‘earn’ a living.
That’s why, whenever somebody asks what I do, I tell them that I race cars. 🙂
Is it my career? Well, not really at this point. But it’s what I do and it’s what I love doing, I don’t really care if I ever get paid to do it or not because I’ll always do it. (Now, if I could get paid for it, that would be WAY cool.)
Besides, nobody has ever forgotten who I am after THAT answer. 😀
I think as you get older, you will find yourself being defined in multiple ways. My friends from high school just see me as Brian. My friends at work see me as the nutty production analyst. The people I’ve become friends with because of activities my kids are involved in, know me as “Daniel’s Dad”. So, I can be defined in multiple ways in one single day. It’s up to me to define myself differently to those people if I take those relationships further. Or to make sure that how I want to be defined comes out as something other than being “just” one of the definitions above.
Great article, it really made me think this afternoon.
I pride myself on having people close to me think of me as a golfer, pool shark, etc. first, instead of the computer-fixer-in-state-service that I used to be. It’s nice that they don’t identify me with my career, and it makes it way more fun when I agree with them that I am a golfer and pool shark first 🙂
Great post Dariane!
Not sure, but about 10 of my friends have been made due to my career.
I try to define myself outside of my career, completely.
I don’t know that it gets any easier. Some people KNOW what they want and where they want to be in the future. Others (like me) are more gauze-y about it. I’ve got things pretty much narrowed down to 2-3 career paths that I am actively exploring. I figure whichever one opens up first I will probably end up taking.
For most of us career is a huge part of life. Even having a career puts you in a bracket and identifies you. Slackers don’t have careers and never ask you about yours.
Right now I think too much of my life is my career… I love it, but there are other things about me that I love and want to explore just as much. Nice reminder to remember its all about balance