Topics Happiness

Question Dear Philosophers, I've been told the "dream girl" as the "dream job" as the "dream life" don't exist. I disagree, I found a wonderful partner and got married to her. It is not a dream, meaning not everything is perfect: I have my flaws and so has she. the question is I've been looking for a career, an activity, anything that can make me happy, energetic, feel alive. (find the job you love and you won't have to work for the rest of your life; find what you love and you will wake up early and go to bed late because without feeling tired, and so on). I've tried to go for the prestige, and worked in bank and multinationals without any results. I then decided to go for the skills, played guitar, surfed, snowboarded, read, did marathons, learnt languages and so on but couldn't get any money from this and evidently it is not my vocation/career. At last I thought I could be a good salesmen and applied for many job. I have a decent job, that for many could be a dream one, as a sales manager, but I hate it, it's stressful and it doesn't seem like a vacation at all. How can I find something that I love, devote entirely to this activity and get rich at the same time? I know it exists, I've tried everything, listened to my soul, do a list of activities I like and so on. NOTHING worked. I'm thirty years old and I feel like a hundred because of the energy that this deep search demands. Could you help me?

Accepted:
September 15, 2010

Comments

You are looking for a job that satisfies your three criteria (1) you love it (2) you can devote yourself to it and (3) you get rich. This isn't a mathematical puzzle with a definite answer; just like your search for the perfect mate, it may or may not exist i.e. is is contingent on the jobs available to you.

Obviously you are putting a good deal of effort into your search, and I wish you good luck. It might be helpful to read a basic book on figuring out what career is right for you (like What Color is your Parachute?). But perhaps you have tried this already. Here are some further ideas.

You may not have met your perfect job yet because there is no job that satisfies your three criteria. One option then is to create your own job (find a niche and be self employed). Another option is to relax some of your criteria. "Getting rich" is overrated as a source of happiness (see recent work by Daniel Kahnemann, described in the NYTimes this week, which suggestions that about $75K per household, happiness does not increase). Some people are more fulfilled by the combination of a job and hobbies (or more than one job); perhaps the second criterion could be weakened to "you can partially devote yourself to it." Some people have a single mission, others have multiple (one is not inherently better than another).

I don't think you need give up the first criterion i.e. that you love it (so long as you aren't unrealistic about love--but it sounds like you have a realistic view of romantic love, so perhaps you have a realistic view of love of work also).