Loving Your Career

Once again, folks, money comes in from the left side and throws love a punch in the face.  Love stumbles around a little bit, but really, it's love that has the better character to beat out its green covered opponent.  In all reality, love is everlasting and money vanishes fairly quickly.  If you want to be happy in life, you must  love your career.

Recently, someone told me that there is a difference between a job and a career.  A job is something that you feel a little more obligated to do.  This obligation is not necessarily fun, but it does give you money.  This money can help you pay for your necessities.  There can also be some spending cash, but of course, that goes away really quickly.  All in all, a job is something you have to get by... for now.  A career is something that you really want to do for the rest of your life.  A career is a true investment of your time and your interests.  A career defines who you are, and is generally something that you love to do.  Of course, a career pays you too, but it may not be as much as you would like.

The explanation I just gave may be a little confusing, so let me clarify:

#1 - JOB - Work that pays money.  You may or may not like it.  It's usually temporary - something you want to beef up your resume with.

#2 - CAREER - Also work that pays money.  People are generally very interested in their careers.  It's very long-term and requires a lot of investment of time and interest.  Your career really defines who you are.

Okay, so now that we have that settled, let me explain to you exactly why you should love your career for what it is and not the money.  If your career pays you a lot of money and you absolutely love what you do, then that is a double whammy.  Your life is really good, and people envy you.  No joking here.  For the majority of us though, we want to make a career out of what we love, but we won't really get a great monetary compensation.  That's okay.  If you can wake up every single day of your life and think something along the lines of, "Wow, I'm really excited to go to work.  I can't wait to do this today.  This day is awesome.  I love my life," then you, my friend, are in a great position.  There may be tiny stresses of life that come along and try to throw down your love for your career, but the attempts by those stresses have nothing on your thoughts about what you do.  Love is so deep and complex, that I truly believe it is almost impossible for anything to simply run it over.  It may take a demon to do that.

Now, if you wake up every day and think these following thoughts: "Oh my Gooodddd, I don't want to go to work today.  Should I just call in sick?  I have to see my boss today, ohh mannnnn..." then I think you may not be in love with your career.  You're in it just for the money, aren't you?  Sure, the money is nice and you can support yourself and your family in addition to buying fancy things, but let's hope you don't kill yourself first!  If you want to live a happy, healthy life, make a smart investment in your career and do something that you love.

I had a conversation with one of my former bosses recently, and she told me that if you're unsure about what you are really in love with doing, just ask yourself two simple questions: "What did you really enjoy doing as a child?" and "What is something that you do that causes you to completely lose track of time?"  The answer to these two questions may lead you down the right path.  Honestly, the answer to both of those questions for me is writing.  I have been keeping a journal since I was about 12 years old, but even before that, I would always write random stuff and enjoy it.  It was only until recently that I realized and understood that we must focus on our natural talents and use them to our best advantage.  After all, what good is it if an extremely talented piano player decides to pursue a career in accounting?  For one, the natural born piano player will be miserable.  Also, that just doesn't seem very efficient.  Wouldn't you rather hire someone that was naturally good in that field?  Makes sense.

And trust me, I really don't think it's ever too late to pursue a career that you are passionate for.  You can be in your 60's or in your 20's.  If changing your career to something you love means saving your sanity and healthy living, then what do you have to lose?  Nothing.

Do what you love.  Pay no mind to the money sitting on your shoulder telling you, "You waaant meee."  Your sanity and your life will thank you for not giving in to stupid green pieces of paper.  Love is so much cooler than that.