Job ... or *Occupation*?
My favorite quote on the topic of work: "Find a job you love, and you will never *work* a day in your life".
I'd always heard it came from St. Patrick, but when I looked at some websites devoted to quotes to confirm that, just now, I found it being attributed to Confucius.
A more recent quote, but, in its way, just as profound: "The lesson Studs has taught me is that your life is over when you stop living it. If you can truly "retire," you had a job, but not an occupation." Roger Ebert, about Studs Terkel. (http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/05/how_studs_helps_me_lead_my_lif_1.html )
As contrasted to that, I often feel like there is something askew when I read people moan on Facebook on a couple related themes: if they are working, how much they hate their jobs; how eagerly they are looking forward to the weekend; or, if they are on vacation, how much they dread having to return to work.
It tells me that either there is something seriously *off* about the way most people view work, or there is something seriously *off* about the way _I_ do so:
What does it say about me, for instance, that inside of the first week after I returned home from the hospital after, narrowly, surviving meningitis, getting used to being deaf, the continuing dinning/buzzing/whirring of tinnitus, having to use two canes to go from room to room, as I acclimated to no longer having an internal sense of equilibrium ..... I got back to work.
Specifically, even though I was on sick leave, I'd field requests for web page updates, and take care of them on my home computer. A part of it was that I didn't like to let people down. A larger part was that it provided a welcome distraction from the other challenges I was then facing. But, still, I wouldn't have done it if I didn't enjoy the process of coding HTML .... using relatively simple computer code to create a particular verbal/visual arrangement.
I actually had to *lobby* with the doctor to get cleared to return to work as soon as I did; he was surprised that I didn't want to languish at home as long as I could get away with doing so.
True, I probably could have been making at least twice the money I make presently, if I had continued to practice law in Illinois .... but, all the time I did so, I never found the work, itself, that personally satisfying. I *endured* it, if order to have the money and (try) to find the time to do the activities that gave me personal satisfaction.
When I dropped out of my practice, and pursued a Master's in Library Science, I knew that step would be counter-intuitive to most people -- why would *anyone* want to do something that would *diminish* their potential income? A well established lawyer can easily make over $100,000 .... a well established *librarian*, even a duo-degreed lawyer/librarian, makes closer to half of that.
But I was choosing the path towards doing something I love: I *like* helping people find information that will provide them with solutions to their problems, I *enjoy* teaching, doing research is, for me, an intellectual treasure hunt, the fun of problem-solving.
And so, I do not find myself dreading the end of the weekend, or a vacation ... I look forward to returning to my work, to tasks which I, (mostly) enjoy, which create value, and by which I win the esteem of my colleagues, even if, as I know all to well, that librarians are held in much lower esteem by *society* than are lawyers!
The reason I've pursued a degree in Religion, even, isn't a fiscal decision to maximize my income ... its moving, yet again, towards something which I expect that I will find even more personally rewarding: I love reading about world religions, talking about them, writing about them. And, already, I'm having articles published about the insights I have gleaned about religion, informed by the mode of analysis inculcated in law school -- the training the defines, for good or ill, "thinking like a lawyer". I've even had one or two speaking engagements to talk about the contents of my articles -- and I hope to get more.
Eh .... in the eyes of the world, I'm probably more then a bit off beam .... after all, my life choices demonstrate that I am more concerned with maximizing *satisfaction*, rather than _wealth_.
As contrasted to that, I once met a young woman, an associate in a large law firm, who complained to me about how wearisome it was working 12 to 16 hour days, 6 or 7 days a week; how frustrating it was that she had bought a condo on the Gold Coast of Chicago, with a view looking out on Lake Michigan, and never was home late enough to see the sunrise over it; how she had been able to afford a fancy SUV, but that, since she was a convenient commute away from her work via public transportation, it mostly just sat in the condo garage, taking up space, and incurring garage fees.
She expected me to pity her, to sympathize with her.
I did pity her, although I couldn't, truly, sympathize. To sympathize is, literally, "to feel along with". I couldn't sympathize because I had never had that experience, nor would I care to.
To the world at large, to choose job satisfaction over maximizing income, is askew of the values and priorities to which most of society subscribes.
But when I hear complaints about people looking forward to the weekend, dreading the end of their vacation, enduring having to do things that are less then personally fulfilling, and the stress that they experience as a result ....
..... as opposed to people like myself and some other of my close friends, who truly *enjoy* our work, and find it personally satisfying ....
.... I have to conclude that it is *society* that is askew!
I'd always heard it came from St. Patrick, but when I looked at some websites devoted to quotes to confirm that, just now, I found it being attributed to Confucius.
A more recent quote, but, in its way, just as profound: "The lesson Studs has taught me is that your life is over when you stop living it. If you can truly "retire," you had a job, but not an occupation." Roger Ebert, about Studs Terkel. (http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/05/how_studs_helps_me_lead_my_lif_1.html )
As contrasted to that, I often feel like there is something askew when I read people moan on Facebook on a couple related themes: if they are working, how much they hate their jobs; how eagerly they are looking forward to the weekend; or, if they are on vacation, how much they dread having to return to work.
It tells me that either there is something seriously *off* about the way most people view work, or there is something seriously *off* about the way _I_ do so:
What does it say about me, for instance, that inside of the first week after I returned home from the hospital after, narrowly, surviving meningitis, getting used to being deaf, the continuing dinning/buzzing/whirring of tinnitus, having to use two canes to go from room to room, as I acclimated to no longer having an internal sense of equilibrium ..... I got back to work.
Specifically, even though I was on sick leave, I'd field requests for web page updates, and take care of them on my home computer. A part of it was that I didn't like to let people down. A larger part was that it provided a welcome distraction from the other challenges I was then facing. But, still, I wouldn't have done it if I didn't enjoy the process of coding HTML .... using relatively simple computer code to create a particular verbal/visual arrangement.
I actually had to *lobby* with the doctor to get cleared to return to work as soon as I did; he was surprised that I didn't want to languish at home as long as I could get away with doing so.
True, I probably could have been making at least twice the money I make presently, if I had continued to practice law in Illinois .... but, all the time I did so, I never found the work, itself, that personally satisfying. I *endured* it, if order to have the money and (try) to find the time to do the activities that gave me personal satisfaction.
When I dropped out of my practice, and pursued a Master's in Library Science, I knew that step would be counter-intuitive to most people -- why would *anyone* want to do something that would *diminish* their potential income? A well established lawyer can easily make over $100,000 .... a well established *librarian*, even a duo-degreed lawyer/librarian, makes closer to half of that.
But I was choosing the path towards doing something I love: I *like* helping people find information that will provide them with solutions to their problems, I *enjoy* teaching, doing research is, for me, an intellectual treasure hunt, the fun of problem-solving.
And so, I do not find myself dreading the end of the weekend, or a vacation ... I look forward to returning to my work, to tasks which I, (mostly) enjoy, which create value, and by which I win the esteem of my colleagues, even if, as I know all to well, that librarians are held in much lower esteem by *society* than are lawyers!
The reason I've pursued a degree in Religion, even, isn't a fiscal decision to maximize my income ... its moving, yet again, towards something which I expect that I will find even more personally rewarding: I love reading about world religions, talking about them, writing about them. And, already, I'm having articles published about the insights I have gleaned about religion, informed by the mode of analysis inculcated in law school -- the training the defines, for good or ill, "thinking like a lawyer". I've even had one or two speaking engagements to talk about the contents of my articles -- and I hope to get more.
Eh .... in the eyes of the world, I'm probably more then a bit off beam .... after all, my life choices demonstrate that I am more concerned with maximizing *satisfaction*, rather than _wealth_.
As contrasted to that, I once met a young woman, an associate in a large law firm, who complained to me about how wearisome it was working 12 to 16 hour days, 6 or 7 days a week; how frustrating it was that she had bought a condo on the Gold Coast of Chicago, with a view looking out on Lake Michigan, and never was home late enough to see the sunrise over it; how she had been able to afford a fancy SUV, but that, since she was a convenient commute away from her work via public transportation, it mostly just sat in the condo garage, taking up space, and incurring garage fees.
She expected me to pity her, to sympathize with her.
I did pity her, although I couldn't, truly, sympathize. To sympathize is, literally, "to feel along with". I couldn't sympathize because I had never had that experience, nor would I care to.
To the world at large, to choose job satisfaction over maximizing income, is askew of the values and priorities to which most of society subscribes.
But when I hear complaints about people looking forward to the weekend, dreading the end of their vacation, enduring having to do things that are less then personally fulfilling, and the stress that they experience as a result ....
..... as opposed to people like myself and some other of my close friends, who truly *enjoy* our work, and find it personally satisfying ....
.... I have to conclude that it is *society* that is askew!