This is an excerpt from my latest book Dear Hannah: 70 Methods I Used and Abused to Change Who I Am.
How I Found Work that I Love
Date: January 4, 2008
Age: 25
Location: Austin, TX
Subject: Patterns in Career Self-Help
Hi Hannah,
I was surprised you liked Know Thyself. To be honest, I’ve kind of lost interest in the method, but I will credit it for motivating me to put in my two-weeks’ notice at Aspyr.
I just couldn’t stand it here anymore. The trappings of the office became symbols for my increasing dissatisfaction. As I brushed my fingertips against the bare white halls that line the hallways, or as I leaned back and felt my knuckles scrape the fabric of my cubicle, I saw myself more and more like a replaceable commodity. My creative muscles were extracted from any creative spirit, and I longed, and still long, for a career of passion.
I think I clung onto video game design for so long because I thought it was my “dream job.” It’s the perfect blend of technology and art, and therefore should appease my need for some liberal arts expression, while taking advantage of my primary professional skills as a programmer. However, no matter how creative the design meetings got, no matter how many times I reminded myself, “What you’re doing is art” or “Anybody would kill to work on The Sims,” there was no magical moment when I really felt love for what I was doing. And at the end of the day, my work got reduced to repetitive exercises in problem solving with programming. I was still working on someone else’s vision. I tried to set my sights on becoming a lead designer, as a way to justify the grind, but I’ve become disillusioned by the game industry as a whole. It’s designed to break hearts. Everybody getting paid $7.50/hr. in QA would gladly take my job. There are just so few dollars chasing so many eager hands, that you’re replaceable.
Why can’t I find work that I love? I’ve struggled since graduation with what I call this “work-problem.” I’ve taken many a career test. I’ve written text file after text file analyzing my issues for weeks and months straight. I’ve taken up a dozen or so hobbies (from painting to podcasting to “Gonzo journalism” — the kind Hunter S. Thompson popularized), and it seems impossible to make something work.
I can’t be the only one out there suffering from the same problem. In fact, I know I’m not, because I read The Quarterlife Crisis, and it’s chock full of stories of people my age going through the same thing. I don’t believe my problems are unique, and career-satisfaction has to be a well-studied problem by now, and so I have to just find the theory behind it.
So, I went to Book People and picked up what are probably the two strongest books on the subject: What Color is Your Parachute? and The Pathfinder. The first book you might’ve heard of before. When the Library of Congress asked Americans what books changed their lives, the Parachute book came up frequently (along with the Bible and Catcher in the Rye!).
I scarfed down these books in a week, and I think I found where they overlap. Both books suggest that usually career-search frustrations can be boiled to one thing: excuses.
The Parachute book, for example, encourages you to take an inventory of every major dimension of your ideal dream job: the location, the salary, the people you work with, etc. And then, the author Nelson Bolles urges you take a step back and do something bold: find a career that has every dimension satisfied.
So I thought about my own career dimensions, and I just said, Go ahead and ask for the moon: 1. I want a career that lets me work independently, 2. that inspires me creatively, 3. that doesn’t require many hours, 4. pays my bills comfortably, and also 5. one that can lead to lots of recognition and success.
Wow, phew, even writing that down, I get chills because I hear Dad’s voice say, “You’re asking for too much.”
Then I followed the “Yeah-But” exercise from The Pathfinder: “Well, if you hate the game industry, why don’t you make games on your own? Yeah, but those small indie games don’t make much money. Okay, why don’t you try making game-like software, possibly blending gaming with education, since learning tools have much more reliable sales? Yeah, but what if I make a game and it flops? Okay, why don’t you make a bunch of games until one sticks? Yeah, but that’ll take a lot of time, and I don’t have enough money to last me all the way through. Why don’t you do consulting half-time, and spend the other half working on your own stuff?”
When I stepped back from this dialog, my mind quieted and I felt stillness in the air. For once in the longest time, I felt really bold. And then I realized that this is probably what a fulfilling career feels like. There’s always a bit of impossibility to it. Your dream job should always make you look back and think, “Wow, I had no idea I had this in me.”
So we’ll see how it goes as an indie-educational-game-developer/consultant. I have to shoot for the stars now, because everything else just hasn’t worked.
- Phil
The fashionable term is now “slash career.” Millenials like Hannah and I are seeking ever-increasing specificity in our career choices, by which we combine two or more separate professions to find work-fulfillment. An example of a trendy one would be an entrepreneur/chef who runs a food truck. Shortly after I left the video game industry, I found my slash career. When Steve Jobs announced the opening of the App Store for the iPhone, I immediately cashed out my meager 401(k), bought a Macbook Pro, and started developing apps. My first app was a Tarot card reader, which had some game-like elements to it. It was an immediate hit, and I still make apps for a living.
Other letters from Dear Hannah about finding work that you love:
• How to Really Pursue One’s Passion
• Creativity and the Power of “Letting Go”
• One Way to Figure out What to Do with Your Life
› How I Found Work that I Love
• How I Got out of My Funk and Got Back to Work
This is an excerpt from my latest book Dear Hannah: 70 Methods I Used and Abused to Change Who I Am.
For Philip’s 14th birthday, Hannah gave him Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, which kicked off a life-long obsession with self-improvement. Over 16 years, Philip wrote 82 letters to Hannah describing every book, pop psych article, and method that he used — or abused. Dear Hannah is either a cautionary tale about self-improvement, or it is a filter for the 10% of self-help that may actually change your life.
PHILIP DHINGRA is a President’s Scholar from Stanford University, where he received his B.A. in Mathematical and Computational Sciences. In addition to authoring books on life change, he develops best-selling iOS apps including Nebulous Notes and The Creative Whack Pack (a collaboration with creativity pioneer Roger von Oech). Philip divides his time between Austin, Texas, and San Francisco, California.
