“We are all here for a reason on a particular path, You don’t need a curriculum to know that you are part of the math.”
– J-Ivy
When I was about 10 years old my father asked me, “Tony, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
I dryly replied, “Ever since I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster.”
“What?!?”
When my father asked me what my dream job was he wasn’t expecting a line from the gangster movie Goodfellas. But, that’s what happens when your dad works for a cable company and you have access to all of the premium channels.
Truth be told, I dreamed of a lot of different jobs when I was a kid but gangster wasn’t really one of them. I was just kidding about that. I actually wanted to be a hockey player. But that only lasted for a few weeks. Then I wanted to be a veterinarian. Again, that didn’t last long. Next I moved on to architect. And then lawyer, zoo keeper, actor, guy that cut meat at the deli, karate master, doctor, radio DJ, and basically every other profession at one time or another.
As a kid it was easy, and even fun, to think about your dream job because there was no pressure. You typically knew exactly what your dream job was because it was whatever interested you at the time. It would change on a weekly basis and you had your whole life in front of you so no decision felt permanent. And of course, you were not encumbered by those pesky details such as the cost of education, the earning potential of one job vs. another, or how to pay your bills during a career transition.
Being Asked to Decide Your Whole Life
As I got a bit older, however, those “pesky details” were starting to become reality and determining my dream job became much more difficult and a lot less fun. The seriousness really became amplified when I was in High School and everyone was talking about colleges and future jobs. It seemed that all of a sudden my teachers and parents wanted me to decide the rest of my life. My fellow students and I were constantly pressured about college applications and even given career assessment tests. As they say, “Sh*t was getting real”.
When I was a senior in high school my guidance counselor asked me the same question that my Dad had asked me years before, “Son, what is your dream job?”
As I sat there in his dimly lit office I panicked, scrambling to figure out the rest of my life in an instant so that I could provide him an answer. I started to think of my interests and talents, thinking that maybe the answer lay in there somewhere. I thought about things like baseball, fishing, and video games.
But just as quickly as I thought about my true interests I dismissed them as just hobbies. I had never seen fishing or video games listed next to real jobs like lawyer, doctor, or teacher. To make matters worse, my talents all seemed geared towards jobs that were unachievable. I was good at baseball but that wasn’t realistic.
“I’ll never be a baseball player.”
“Fishing isn’t a job”
“No one is going to pay me to play video games.”
So, I made up some fake answer and said something like, “A lawyer”. I didn’t really want to be a lawyer, I just didn’t have anything better to say. I couldn’t come up with a dream job.
The Question that Haunts
That experience really bothered me. In fact it still haunted me years later in college. So, I started to dive into the question “What is your dream job?” and explore why I wasn’t able to answer it.
I wanted to hear from others so I started speaking with my college classmates, asking them the question, “What is your dream job?” I also started asking the same question of my parents and my parents’ friends so that I could get the perspective of people that had surely explored this question in detail and were perhaps even working in their dream job. But do you know what I learned from both the college and adult poll participants? I learned that 1.) Most people couldn’t answer the question easily, and 2.) Most people seemed to get anxious and even frustrated by the question.
That simple question seemed to have an overwhelming effect on people both young and old[er]. It scared the hell out of the college kids. Judging by the look that most of them gave me it was as if I just asked them to determine the next 50 years of their life and lock it in, no changes accepted. It seemed that they were also getting that question from their parents on a daily basis, although phrased without the word dream, as in “What are you going to do for a job?”
Funny enough, those same adults asking that question of their kids didn’t fare much better in the poll. When I asked them about their dream job the reaction seemed to indicate that I had just pointed out all of their failures in their life, leaving them sad and even exasperated. Most of them responded with either a jokey comment such as “I’m still trying to figure it out” or a very serious reflection on their life such as “I don’t know. Sometimes you just have to do the best you can to earn for your family.”
Good God this was depressing! Exasperated myself by the unfruitful polling I decided to do some soul searching, asking myself why no one could seem to answer this question. As I dug in I eventually had a realization. I, as well as the poll participants, couldn’t answer the question because it was a bad question!
I decided that there is no such thing as a dream “job”. The words “dream” and “job” have no business together. It is an oxymoron, like saying “awesome death”. One is awesome and the other sucks. A dream represents hope and excitement while a job is something you have to do, it’s a requirement. In fact, Dictionary.com defines a job as “Anything a person is expected or obliged to do; duty; responsibility.”
That doesn’t sound like a dream, it sounds like a nightmare!
Jobs Suck, Vocations Rule
My epiphany that the question was all wrong was quickly met with a depressing feeling that maybe there was no scenario in which work could be seen as a positive or a dream. Maybe anything involving work or productivity was just simply unappealing. Perhaps people just flat out didn’t want to work and thus there truly was no way of enjoying your profession.
“But wait, that can’t be,” I thought as I realized that most people truly enjoy feeling productive and doing work that is rewarding. People have interests and passions that they are more than happy to work hard at. In other words, people do in fact have work that they dream about doing and would be more than happy to dedicate their time to.
It is when that pesky word “job” comes into the equation that everything gets messed up. That very word emphasizes feelings of obligations and responsibilities and suffocates passions, talents, and interests.
In fact, when people hear the question “What is your dream job?” the word “job” dominates the phrase to the point that the word “dream” is essentially drowned out. They hear the first part of the question, “What is your dream…” and begin to get excited, almost giddy, as they think about their calling or their hopes, dreams, and passions. And then the question is finished with that soul crushing word “job” and the dream is bludgeoned to death by thoughts of salaries, benefits, 401K’s, bosses, and meetings.
The dream job is now just a job. In other words, the dream is dead.
So, I thought there must be a better word. I went to my favorite book, the thesaurus, and started searching. Eventually I came upon the word “vocation”. I then looked it up in Dictionary.com which defined vocation as “a strong impulse or inclination to follow a particular activity or career; calling”.
Yes! This was it. We shouldn’t be talking about dream jobs we should be talking about dream vocations! A vocation implies something deep inside of you, something that you were born to do. It is a calling that uses your God-given talents. It is part of you, as much as your soul is a part of you. Jobs, on the other hand, are a dime a dozen. They are just an arbitrary means of making money that emphasize obligation over passion.
You see, the moment you replace the word “job” with the word “vocation” you break the restrictive shackles that prevent most people from answering the question “What is your dream job?” Your mind is open and you are free to focus on the dream, not the obligations. You are free to think, to create, and to invent the life you want.
Even Lawyers Can Love What They Do
To be clear, part of your vocation can and should be a money making profession but it is the underlying core values that separate it from a job. Those core values are 1.) your God-given talents and 2.) your calling in life. I will get into the details of the core values of a vocation more in a later post but for now take a look at an example of two different lawyers to highlight the difference between a job and a vocation.
And yes I understand that the profession of lawyer couldn’t possibly seem like a dream vocation but that’s exactly why I chose it. Check it out.
Lawyer A, let’s call her Jane, felt very strongly that she was blessed with the God-given ability to influence people with her public speaking. She also believed that she should help people that were in the lowest circumstances possible. In other words, she felt called to use her talents to help others. So, Jane decided the best way to fulfill her calling was to become a lawyer for wrongly imprisoned men and women.
Now let’s look at Lawyer B who we will call Jim. When Jim finished his undergraduate degree he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. He always loved music and felt strongly about it but he figured it was time to grow up, make some money, and have a respectable profession. So, Jim decided that going to law school would be a safe path and provide a good living. Jim went through law school, became a lawyer, and made good money.
Do you see the difference? Jane chose to become a lawyer because it allowed her to personify her calling of helping people. She chose a career because that career was a reflection of her inner most passions and beliefs. Jane had a vocation. She was living out her calling and because it was part of her she could love it.
On the other hand, Jim’s career was simply chosen for the sake of money and a respectable title. His passions and beliefs played no role in his profession. In fact, Jim dismissed his love of music for safety and money. Jim didn’t have a vocation, he had a job. He could find interest in his job and maybe even like parts of it, but he could never truly love it. It was just a job, it didn’t reflect who he was or what he was called to do.
Vocations Can Lead to $$$$$
Just to be clear this isn’t some hippy dippy utopian view where money doesn’t matter. Surely you will need money to survive and you probably even want enough money to thrive. The good news is that a vocation will allow you to make money. In fact, I believe those that live out their vocation will make far more money than those that are just working a job.
You can be good at your job. You can even be very good at it. But you can only be great at something that you truly love. And greatness is what attracts people and money.
It’s like Maya Angelou said, “You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you.”
The point that I am trying to make is that if you begin thinking in terms of a vocation instead of a job, your God-given talents and calling will be at the heart of your pursuits and drive the financial outcomes you desire as opposed to letting money drive your pursuits.
So, forget about a dream job. There is no such thing. Instead, think about your dream vocation!