The stakes are too high to be anything less than crystal clear: choosing a career is one of the top 5 most important decisions you will make in your entire life. It’s as paramount as where to live, who to form relationships with, whether to have children, and defining what a ‘good life’ means to you.
Your ability to not only accept this truth, but also accept the challenge of getting to know thyself well enough to choose wisely, determines whether you will fully flourish. Of course, you can deny this truth and still live a nice life, however, you only live once so you should aim for a great life.
Before closing your heart and closing this tab, I ask you to consider just a few of the many reasons why you should think very carefully about your career.
Finite time
We all have a finite amount of time on this earth. We cannot experience everything this world has to offer and doing one thing means not doing another. We all know this on some level, but we usually still squander our precious time and spend too much of our lives doing things we don’t find fulfilling.
When you are physically at work, you cannot be relaxing at the beach, playing with your children, hiking a mountain, reading in bed, or whatever else you’d rather be doing. Even if you work remotely–and have more flexibility to take mental and physical breaks during the workday–you are still limited in what you can do; sooner or later, work will beckon and you dare not be away from your computer for too long.
Now, to be fair, while work does take up a significant amount of our time, there are still many hours to spare. Some simple math: if you work a 9-5 and sleep 8 hours, then you should have a luxurious 8 hours to spend each weekday (and even more on the weekends). 8 hours per day is enough to accomplish anything!
If this seems too good to be true, it’s because it is. We haven’t factored in any of the largely unavoidable demands of life such as commuting, eating, exercising, hygiene, maintaining relationships, etc. The math is different for everyone, but many can reasonably expect to have a few hours of free time on a workday, which still seems like ample time for a hobby or two…
So why will I insist that you focus on your choice of work before “optimizing” and “hacking” your time outside of it? Because, as Annie Dillard so eloquently puts it: how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
But it’s also more than that. It’s because the quality of our time is just as important as the quantity of our time and most of us give our best hour to work.
Cyclical energy
Like time, energy is finite. Our capacity for physical, mental, and emotional exertion is limited and while we can improve our stamina, there are limits to how much. If you try to pursue a passion project outside of work indefinitely, the quality of your passion project and work will suffer.
If you work on your feet–in a warehouse, restaurant, store–your training to become a competitive athlete will be less productive. If your job is mentally demanding, you will not have as much vigor–to write, draw, read–in the evening. If you’re a therapist, you won’t be as emotionally available for your friends and family as you were for your patients. And if you try to “hack” the system by engaging in extracurricular activities before work, your work will be compromised instead.
Unfortunately, for many of us it is sub-optimal to “eat the frog” and do our most important task first thing in the morning. This is because in addition to being finite, energy is also cyclical. While energy eventually bottoms out at the end of the day, it ebbs and flows throughout. Some people are most energized in the evening, but for most people energy peaks sometime during the workday. These energy spikes matters because they coincide with our maximum potential (physical, mental/creative, and emotional).
The fact is that your best efforts are likely not going to come before or after work. Many will say that some effort is better than no effort and there is some truth to that. Some effort can help you quickly assess whether you like something and have any natural skill in it. Some effort may be all you need to experience fulfillment. Some effort–and the compromised results–may be acceptable to you.
However, if you are a person who wishes they were doing something else most of the workday, then it is a terrible strategy to pursue your passions in the odd hours, with limited energy, until you catch the mythical “big break”. This is because…
Excellence demands dedication
To make a living off a passion, one typically needs to be one of the best in the world at what they do. Talent is necessary, but there are loads of talented people. Opportunity, physical appearance, and personality all matter, but what often separates the best from the rest–and is under your control–is effort.
10,000 hours by Malcom Gladwell is highly instructive in this regard. To write the book Gladwell studied multiple world-class performers and estimated the minimum amount of time to develop mastery of any craft is 10,000 hours. If you spent 2 hours every day on your passion, it would take over 13 years to develop mastery (and likely longer if at all as it’s not clear if one can develop mastery at such a low intensity).
Even if you’re skeptical of Gladwell’s methods, it’s easy to see this phenomenon yourself. Professional athletes dedicate their entire day to sleeping, stretching, eating well, studying film, and, of course, working out, often twice a day. Musicians are constantly writing lyrics, trying out melodies, recording sounds in the world, and, of course, practicing their instrument. I’m confident if you look at anyone excellent to world-class at something, you will find that they are “all-in” and put far more than a few hours per day into their craft (sometimes to the determinant of their well-being!)
I’ll readily admit there are a few stories of someone accomplishing something noteworthy as a passion project, however, almost all of these stories eventually result in people quitting their job–so they can dedicate their best time to their art. More common are the stories of people quitting their job outright to be able to dedicate their best hours to an endeavor. This all-in approach takes tremendous courage and these adventures do not begin with immediate success, but in the end these people usually find satisfaction even if they “fail”. Sadly, an even more common story is people abandoning their passion, not because of lack of talent or interest, but rather a lack of success (due to a lack of quality time).
To make money off a passion you often have to be excellent. You cannot become excellent while pursuing a passion on the side. You need to work hard and work long hours, more than is possible with a full-time job. It’s a hard truth to accept because it means jumping into the deep end, but if you ignore it, you will fail and your passion will whither. You can’t play it safe and be great.
Later never happens
Passions do not wait for us to make it to retirement. That is another popular myth to help us cope with the pain from living a life we don’t want. Nothing lasts forever. People change. What good comes from neglect?
Passions are too precious of a gift to surrender to the callous forces of entropy. As soon as you know your passion is more than a fleeting fancy, you must nurture it by dedicating your most valuable time and energy to it. If you do not, you risk more than a wasted opportunity. According to Mary Oliver, the great naturalist poet:
The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.
–Upstream by Mary Oliver
Work changes us…
Another reason our careers are one of the most important decisions of our lives is: work changes who we are outside of work.
People almost always underestimate the influence of their work on themselves. They think of their character as something that cannot be changed without their permission (or cannot be changed at all), but even cursory introspection reveals this to be untrue; do you behave as you did when you were a child? Do you still value social status as much as you did in high school? Do you still view adults as ‘sellouts’ and ‘phonys’?
While we can make an intentional, conscious effort to change our behavior, we also cannot help undergo unintentional, subconscious changes in response to our environment. Subconscious changes are particularly powerful–and dangerous–in that they are constantly occurring and difficult to detect.
All changes are powerful in that they are self-reinforcing. Neuroscience, Buddhism, and many other disciplines agree that behavior is a relentless positive feedback loop. The more you act and feel a certain way at work, the more likely you are to act and feel that way outside of work (whether you like it or not). The brain does not have an on/off switch for work-mode and work is particularly important in influencing our behavior because we spend so much of our time at work. As Jim Rohn posits “you are the average of the five people you spent the most time with” and I’ll bet a few people from work are in anyone’s top 5.
This saying captures the spirit of the phenomenon:
Watch your thoughts, they become words;
watch your words, they become actions;
watch your actions, they become habits;
watch your habits, they become character;
watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
If you’re still not convinced work changes you, let’s consider some examples you may have noticed among other people. Some obvious examples of work changing people is the discipline instilled by the military, the liberalizing influence of higher education, and the squishybrainedness of kindergarten teachers. Some less obvious examples are the tendency of salespeople to view others as networking opportunities, public defenders to expect the worst in people, doctors to be obsessed with money and material things, lawyers to interpret statements literally, and ICU nurses to ration their compassion. There is some self-selection here, but there is no doubt that these work environments change people.
Now that you’ve seen the influence of work on others, can you see it more clearly in yourself?
If you are still struggling to accept that you’ve changed—and will continue to change–seek out more perspectives than your own. Reach out to an old friend that you don’t see much anymore, discuss with your therapist or your parents, read more about other’s experiences, or immerse yourself in the science of change.
Work changes us…for better or worse
Work undoubtedly changes us and it can change us for better or worse. I will not define better or worse for you and I encourage you to not let anyone else do so either. Part of becoming an adult / self-actualization / flourishing is learning to think for yourself and defining good and bad as it relates to you. It is wise to listen to the guidance of others, especially when walking unfamiliar paths, but good / bad is ultimately subjective. What matters most is how YOU feel about YOU.
So when you think of your work, do you think it is helping you become who you want to be? Even if your job is weakly inhibitive or even neutral, are you okay spending the majority of your life—and the most productive part of your days—not building and reinforcing positive tendencies?
Your work is bigger than you – the world
The work you do—or choose not to do—shapes the world around you. Some of the ways work impacts the world are obvious. A farmer grows food for others to eat, a doctor lessens the suffering of the sick, teachers enlighten the minds of the young. This is easy to see.
More challenging to see are the opportunity costs of working one occupation instead of another. A farmer is not writing poetry, a doctor is not building homes, and a teacher is not designing biological weapons. It’s hard to say whether the world needs more poetry or houses, but both the Buddha and John Lennon agree that the world definitely does not need more weapons and soldiers (or economists). If everyone decided to work in an occupation that did not cause harm, the world would be a better place. And even if only you decided to not cause harm, the world would still be a better place.
Your work is bigger than you – your world
You may not care much for making the world better for strangers, but making the world better for everyone also has the benefit of making the world better for yourself and your loved ones. We are so deeply interconnected with each other that, like the butterfly effect, even an action as seemingly inconsequential as throwing a stone into the ocean can create ripples that lead to giant waves washing over the inhabitants of the world (including those who think of themselves as an island). And while exactly how the consequences of our actions unfold is a mystery, it is clear that there exists a positive feedback loop both within and between individuals. If you compliment someone, they are more likely to be kind to the next person they interact with and that person is more likely to be kind to the next person they interact with (and eventually you or a loved one may benefit from this chain of kindness). As Sophocles said: kindness begets kindness.
Thus, the optimal strategy–even for the most selfish individual–is the same as in the infinitely iterated prisoner’s dilemma or the Golden Rule: treat others as you would like to be treated by them. The rewards you and your loved ones reap may be, for the most part, subtle and slight, but they are very real and very impactful in totality.
Of course, some will argue that there are instances where it is more beneficial to take advantage of someone else. This is only true in the short-term. We live in communities and have digital reputations that follow us wherever we go. If you are an asshole, you will find yourself no longer receiving the benefit of the doubt, exclusion from social activities, and feeling a general lack of warmth from others. The scary thing is even strangers may act this way towards you because of what they’ve heard about you and you may never know it and you may never escape it.
If that is too ‘woo woo’ for you, no matter, your work also impacts your loved ones in another, more direct way. While we already discussed how work changes who you are, we glossed over how your relationship with yourself influences your relationship with others.
In general, the more fulfilled you are by your work, the healthier your relationship with others. Instead of bringing poisonous frustration, sadness, or bitterness to the table, you can bring nourishing compassion, love, and joy. You can decrease your suffocating dependence and make way for more healthy attachments styles. You can be more flexible in allowing others to be themselves.
If you have or aspire to have children, your career is especially important. One of the greatest gifts you can give a child is an example of a life well lived. It’s a risky proposition to hope your children live a good life when you yourself do not. Do not leave the heavy burden of figuring it out solely to your children. Be someone who can guide them in the art of walking their own path.
I’m not saying I’m gonna change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the brain that will change the world.
-Tupac Shakur
Conclusion
To recap why choosing your career is one of the most important decisions in your life:
- We have a finite amount of time—working means not doing something else
- Our most productive hours are often during the workday—dedicate the best hours of your day to what’s most important
- Later never comes—don’t wait until retirement to follow your passion for it will likely be gone by then
- Work changes who we are—find a job that pushes you toward becoming the person you want to be
- Work changes the world—help create the world you want for yourself and your loved ones
Thus far I’ve presented the stakes of choosing a career in terms of better or worse, but some see it even more starkly. Stephen Cope citing both the Bhagavad Gita and Gospel of Thomas says:
If you bring forth what is within you [your calling] it will save you. If you do not, it will destroy you.
I will not sugarcoat it: avoiding this fate will take a lot of effort—it has taken me 10 years and counting—however, the silver lining is:
“He, who has a why to live for, can bear with almost any how.”
-Victor Frankl