What is a career? Why do you do what you do?
Penelope Trunk recently wrote about work-life balance, referencing the recent New York Times article about how Amazon treats employees. Explaining her own experience launching startups, Penelope says, “What I’m telling you is that I have been one of those people who worked insane hours and put my company before my life. And I’m here to tell you that there are people who really do want to do that. We should let them.” Some companies expect employees to work all the time. They are for people willing to give everything to their careers – not just forty hours.
Do these employees enjoy giving so much without respite? Or is it the prestige, paycheck, intensity, and reward that makes such work worthwhile? Or the thrill of climbing that career ladder? On the other end of the spectrum, some people hate their jobs, or feel ambivalent towards them. Maybe they are stuck in the job because of debt, or the job is a means to the end of traveling or reaching financial goals.
Whatever the reason or motivation, we all have careers, and by career I mean things you spend a lot of time doing for decades (not necessarily for pay). There are people who have a clear career visions: they want to do a specific thing, and they have certainty around it. Yet most people’s professional lives are not straightforward. We move from thing to thing as opportunities arise and our interests and circumstances change. This can be done with intention and planning, but often seems to just… happen. Have you stopped to think, why am I doing what I’m doing? What careers am I experiencing now?
My cousin is starting a new job today. After discussing the lifestyle that goes with 9-to-5 work, I shared Penelope’s post with her. She said,
“My values are radically different than hers. I can’t put any value on the concept of a “career” because to me it’s invented. What are you actually driven by when you’re a “career-driven” person? What intrinsic value is there in a career? To me a job is a means to many different ends.”
Of course, there’s a lot of space between work as a means to an end, and putting your career before everything. Work is meaningful. It can come with identity, community, reward, recognition, and pride. Even if you don’t love what you do, you probably love what your job enables you to do: eat and drink well, live where you want, save money for future goals. And if we didn’t work, what would we do? …. Something, right? Some sort of occupation.
Think of “work” or “career” expansively: it’s about contributing, helping people, and creating community, whether or not you’re climbing a ladder. My cousin clarified her qualms, saying, “what I have a hard time understanding is people being ‘career-driven’ OUTSIDE OF being passionate about the actual work they’re doing, and having that be an end in itself. There are people who hate their jobs and are miserable every day but love the idea of climbing to the top of this mythical (in my opinion) career ladder. It’s much more important to me to do work that I think is interesting/helpful regardless of the paycheck or title.”
Sure, sometimes you have to work just for pay. But your career is never one thing; it’s a combination, a collection of all you do, and it changes all the time. You do it for many reasons, and those change, too. If you feel stuck, try asking yourself “why do I do these things? Do they align with my values or help me achieve my goals? Do they enable me to do what I want? Is it time for a change?
(photo by Eva Jannotta)
