Work and stuff
Kate in Madrid asked about work and how it fits into our life and if we are now who we thought we'd turn out and all that. Actually, I have no idea, really. I went to study something in college I thought I would enjoy and something I was good at: foreign languages. Then I finished college and still loved foreign languages but of the actual subject of my studies (translation) I had had enough. Luckily I got married at the same time and so the next thing to do was making money for me and my full-time-student husband and not so much a period of discernment about the ideal career. Since then I've had many jobs, some related to what I studied, some not, but it was still all just to make some money. And then! I had a baby and I wanted to raise her full-time and here I am, still not having started "a career" but working in a job with not as much market as "vocational" value.
Kate was mentioning the difference of attitude towards work between Spain and the US, the former seeing work as a very uncomfortable necessity and the latter as an obligation to fulfillment and success. Those are broad generalizations but there is some truth. There is a strong pressure in the American society to be better, to be perfect if possible. Having the right job, the one you loooove figures into that. There is a tendency to eliminate everything unpleasant from life (except exercise! do not stop exercising!) and work is totally unpleasant, so if you looove your job, you have that problem taken care of. Europeans might be lower expectations in that area, plus they don't have this constant American dreaming to do on a daily basis, so it's more common to admit you don't like your job and that's that.
It's all easier when you've always felt a keen interest in one particular thing and especially if it was an already clearly defined job (like doctor or teacher or hairdresser). If you don't, like me, that whole fulfillment+success element in your job selection is much harder. It's a question that comes and goes in my life... "should I be doing what I'm doing?" or "am I answering all my "calls" in life?" At times it's exasperating but I'm finding out that getting older (oldER, I'm not saying i'm old, obviously... sheesh!) helps in this regard. My perspective is slowly shifting and I'm becoming more free in my thinking. This whole childhaving experience really pushed me to the edge and I surprised myself with what I could survive. So now, I care less and less about what people would expect of me, or what people call "a career" or what in their eyes would make me successful. And let's face it, that's what all these questions come down to.
I don't believe there is only this one thing for a person to do in life. For some people that's how it turns out, they find one thing and they do amazing things in it and they don't change directions. For other people it's a lot of little things or a few big things and for others the description of their lives should not even include their "jobs", because their main merits are somewhere else entirely. I also have an issue with the mixing of what one has done and what one is. If you're working in some sort of high-powered business, that's what it will always become. What does your resume say, what have you done, where is the money? That in itself would not be a problem, because a company is there to build and create things and work experience is relevant, not the state of heart. Unfortunately though, I've hardly met any people in business, who didn't end up firmly believing that a lack of success in their job was directly connected to their value as a person. That's where all the misery starts in my opinion, whether you're employed or unemployed.
It's wonderful to feel fulfilled in your job, it's something to aspire to definitely, but how exactly you achieve that is really only up to the individual. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to wake up whistling in the morning because every single minute of your working day makes you want to put on your apron and burst into "The hills are alive!!!". It does mean that you find meaning in it though.
Posted at 01:02 PM on May 25, 2005
Hi dinka, great post. I didn't see it before, but I'm glad I did now. I'm obviously still struggling with this issue, but it's good to read your perspective.