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[lobsterbox]

OK, question time. For those reading, how did you decide to do what you do for a living? If you have or had a steady career, how did you get into that and decide that was for you? I ask this because I'm feeling the return of that old angst of wondering just what the fuck I'm going to do with myself. As I've writen before, committing to a lifetime

Comments

[sandyosullivan]

I think the thing is, though, it doesn't have to be the end. I mean finding something you like and doing it and achieving that doesn't have to be the end-point. I guess for me (see my book-sized rant below) the big issues are around always wanting new projects in my work. I'm a Research Fellow, as you know, but if I thought I was just gonna do one field of research for the rest of my life, no matter how much lots of people want that job, it would destroy me. I love working across disciplines, finding a field of interest and exploring it. And I think we can do that in a lot of jobs. I think there was a point where I was doing lectures year in and year out, and sometimes teaching slightly different courses - but essentially using a lot of the same skills- where I found that hard. No matter how much I enjoyed dealing with students, I felt I wasn't fresh and that it wasn't giving me new challenges, but while my job now could stay the same for the rest of my life (god, not that I think it would, or would want that), I do think that I purposefully orchestrated a way to break the tedium, and it took ages to do it (and to realise that I wanted to do it), but I think if you want something enough, you'll find a way towards it. The hardest part, I think, is finding out what you want and not being so committed to that, that you - trying to think how to say this - feel like you have to keep doing the same thing cos its what you wanted to begin with. Know what I mean?