“Dream jobs” are often false promises if you stake your identity in them. But the right gig can help you fill your hours of the day more meaningfully.
Work has always been a fascinating topic for me. I think that’s largely because, in the United States, so much of our time, energy, and identity is invested in what we do for a living. To most, this is something that’s so taken for granted that it doesn’t stand out as unusual, until you leave the country and discover that this indeed isn’t how it is everywhere.
In fact, I remember studying as an exchange student in Australia, totally surprised by the way my host students would blow off an entire week’s worth of shifts at their jobs in order to spend the week with their exchange students. And while some of that could be chalked up to these being food service jobs for high schoolers, in Turkey, I experienced grown professionals taking four hour long “lunch breaks” to show me around.
In the U.S., work is so central to our lives. It’s why I have a three year old who's already been asked more times than I can track what he wants to be when he grows up. A career path is painted up to be one of the most important things in a person’s life. And if that’s the world you live in, there’s only so much you can do to escape its importance. Even if this isn’t a value you hold to the same degree, living in the U.S. means you’ll likely be spending most of your waking hours on the clock.
I recognized this early in life, which is why I spent so many years trying to put myself in a position to do meaningful work I enjoyed. And I truly love what I’ve been doing for as long as I can remember. I’ve experienced the “dream job” and all that it can bring, along with all of its deficits and what it’s unable to provide. Below are my takes on what a job can and cannot provide. Bear in mind, this is from the perspective of somebody who has more or less won the career lottery. Aren’t our takes always a function of our experiences, anyways?
In the U.S., when people introduce themselves, they most typically begin with a job title or function. In other settings, this question is often answered relationally. I’m a daughter, a friend, a brother, etc. But in the U.S., I’m in finance, I’m a teacher, I’m a designer are much more common answers.
Work can bring people a sense of identity. That’s for sure. But what it can’t bring is a well-rounded sense of identity. Most jobs and workplaces call for specialization, or narrowing one’s focus of interest. This means curbing or divesting away from many of our interests. And it takes time away that we could be investing in relationships.
I’m particularly intrigued by the case of the freshly retired athlete, who must navigate a new identity apart from the sporting skill that defined them for years and years. Can it be done? Sure. But it’s not easy, and not all former athletes see the same success. For those who do, it can be a profound growth moment.
Although work can’t provide a well-rounded identity, that doesn’t mean it can’t give you something to do that’s an expression of your identity. And if you work anything resembling a typical job, work is going to represent such a large portion of your time that it’s really helpful if you can find something to do that you enjoy and find valuable overall… as opposed to something that feels like rote labor. If anything, the thing that I would find most persuasive towards getting a good job is the fact that work represents so much of your time.
That said, there are many ways to give the way you use time meaning. You could be doing work that helps people and solves problems. You could be doing something that you enjoy so much time seems to stand still. You could be doing something that you feel lukewarm towards, but doing it alongside people you really like might give it meaning. An ideal work scenario doesn’t have to check all these boxes (but that’s great if it does!) You just don’t want the way you spend around 2/3rds of your waking hours to be something that actively makes you miserable.
In younger years, the aspiration of landing a dream job was always one that dangled in front of me, like the motivation to keep plugging away through school and all kinds of extracurriculars. While I never felt quite as money-motivated as many peers, I was still drawn to the allure of wanting to excel at something. I also wanted work that gave me an opportunity to keep doing new and novel things, rather than doing the same thing every day. The mental image of an assembly line type of occupation really felt like a threat.
I lucked out in that right after college I landed the best internship I could imagine, combining my personal love for adventure with an opportunity to work in international human rights. That led to subsequent internships that were similar in nature. Those internships turned into graduate programs, then entry level gigs, then a position of climate communications and storytelling I continue to grow in.
I’ve landed what’s essentially my dream job and discovered how good it can be, only to simultaneously discover all the things it doesn’t bring to my life. It’s a luxury I’m lucky to have, and it’s incomplete as a marker of identity. Over the past few years, I’ve been riding waves back and forth from expecting a little too much out of what I do to underestimating the joy it can bring. I’ve found my way to a better place, a place that pretty much comes with experience. But I think a younger version of myself would benefit from knowing what to expect from work, and what to look for elsewhere.