There are no ‘Dream Jobs’
When you’re growing up (and even when you are perceived to be a grown up) people always ask you ‘What’s your dream job?’. I used to have lots of answers for this. When I was about 5–10 I wanted to be Indiana Jones or a spy. Clearly not the most realistic but that’s why it’s a dream job right? No one actually expects you to go and get it.
But these days that’s changed. When you have people on YouTube who are making videos and charging for advertising, or gamers who literally get paid to game or even bloggers who manage (somehow) to make a living based on exceptionally pretty pictures of themselves and food you have to wonder: what am I doing wrong? How are these people ‘doing what they love’ and getting paid for it? The thing is, I’ve met a good portion of these people — they’re around my age (mid-late 20s) and guess what? The job’s they’re doing now? Not their dream job, usually it’s something they ‘fell into’ and never expected to do.
That got me to thinking about how attitudes to work and jobs need to change. I don’t think that there are dream jobs. What I think is that everyone (I do mean everyone) has a set of skills that they can probably do better than others whether if it’s being a Personal Trainer or a make-up artist (or in my case a librarian) and it’s about figuring out what your skill-set is away from standardised testing.
Figuring out what you’re good it as the hardest thing you can possibly do. This is partly because lots of skills can’t be quantified through a test or exam. Plus, some skills tend to go in and out of fashion. I also think that university isn’t necessarily the be all, end all of attaining a decent standard of living and a job you enjoy. I have three degrees and only one of them has even mildly contributed to what I do now.
And what I do now? I work as a Librarian. And I’m good at it because I love helping people: the fact that I am a bit of a creeper and retain useless information makes me sort of a bartender for books and I love it! Because here’s the thing, once you enjoy what you do, you’ll start to take a measure of pride in doing it well and at some point, better than everyone else. People notice when you’re passionate about what you do. Have you ever sat through a presentation that bored you to tears? It’s most likely you have — and it’s probably because the person presenting did not remotely give an f. about what they were talking about. Then go and compare this to someone who genuinely cares about what they’re talking about. My favourite is a chap who spoke about Cloud Appreciation — to the point where he’s turned it into an international club that I'm part of!
I’m not telling you to stop aiming for the dream.. Definitely not. But think about what’s important to you and then think about how you can get there. It’s likely that that it won’t involve you becoming an accountant or a lawyer. We have lots of those. It’s not even about doing what makes you happy (although that should be part of it). Rather it’s about what gives you a sense of self-worth at the end of the day. When you can leave you workplace and take pride in what you’ve achieved.
If you have any questions for Natasha please feel free to post a comment below. And don’t forget to recommend this post to others by clicking on the ‘heart’ below.
