"Work", (not) the best word in the dictionary
"Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life"
Confucius
My day today has been a rather typical student day. It started with sport in the morning, brunch at 11.30am (I was too late getting up for breakfast, I was starving by 11!), a cup of tea at 12pm and ready for a meeting at 12.40pm. By 1pm I was at a meeting for a student society event, then a quick visit to the library where I fell asleep (twice) and then the executive decision to go home for a coffee. Got home, worked on a CV and wrote a cover letter for an internship. Finally, went out for dinner and watched Merlin with friends (I love that type of nonsense the BBC produces) and then back home for a blogging session.
Forget the sport, the meeting, the brunch, the dinner and focus on the CV (and Merlin, always focus on Merlin). As I was writing it I was wondering where I would be ten years from now, or twenty or even five - under a bridge, and not comfortable one at that?
Forget the sport, the meeting, the brunch, the dinner and focus on the CV (and Merlin, always focus on Merlin). As I was writing it I was wondering where I would be ten years from now, or twenty or even five - under a bridge, and not comfortable one at that?
"If
only I knew what I wanted to do" I kept thinking. Well, I have a
fairly clear idea of what things I like and where I'll probably start but who
knows where I'll finish.
It occurred
to me that I was thinking about what I like, what I don’t like, what I want to
do, what I don’t want to do, what type of career I think would suit me… But I
never really thought about what would make me happy.
So there’s
the big question: how can you be happy in your career? Tal Ben-Shahar from
Harvard University has come up with this suggestion when choosing a career:
look at what gives you meaning, what gives you pleasure and look at your
strengths. Whatever is common to all three areas is probably what you want in
your job. Still, I can see that a lot analysis will stop me from making a
decision I’ll regret and it will help me make a more reasoned choice… But will
a job which I’m good at, which I enjoy and which gives me a purpose be enough?
And how do I find a purpose in my job?
I think a
sense of purpose is really important to making us happy: if we think that what we
are doing is worthwhile, we will probably be pleased with ourselves. Which is
why I find that 80000hours is such a fascinating organisation. I’m linking a
post on their blog, which is rather insightful (and which I know will annoy
Dom): http://80000hours.org/blog/72-how-many-lives-does-a-doctor-save.
You don’t have to agree with them you just have to follow the reasoning: some
jobs that are thought of as very full of purpose and good, can actually turn
out to have little impact. That doesn’t mean they are doing any less good, it
just means that it’s not as effective as we generally think. Conversely, there
are jobs that aren’t commonly thought of as “ethical”, which can make much more
of an impact on the world than your more “ethical” career. E.g. a management
consultant who donates 50% of his salary for his entire life will, according to
80000hours, still be very rich and yet by the end of his career he will have
donated about £3million to charity – now that is a lot of money from one
person!
Make of this
what you like, I’m not saying that we should stop being doctors or that nobody
should volunteer. I am just saying that we are inherently human and therefore we
are inherently social animals. That means that we can hardly exist outside of a
society (it’s virtually impossible in the Western world) – we should appreciate
that as such, our contribution should perhaps be judged according to the impact
it has on society rather than in itself.
This is not
a defence of people who like being rich – it’s a suggestion to think about our
role in society in slightly different terms from how we are used to. We might
find purpose in what we are already doing!
One thing is
for certain: I probably won’t be talking about purpose in my CV… I need to find
it first!
That is very interesting chat! I think it's great that our students are trying hard to work out the meaning of life because as soon as you get into full-time work you may not have that luxury. I would add one comment; how many high-earning management consultants would be likely to give away 50% of their wealth? Admittedly their are many philanthropists but many of these are poor. Generosity is not dependent on great wealth I would argue, not financial wealth at any rate, rather on riches of compassion, empathy, altruism.
ReplyDeletePlease accept a spelling correction to comment 1! Line 5 "There" not "their".
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment! I agree with you that often the people who go into management consultancy are not really thinking about how they can do the most for charity.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the argument made by 80000 hours work from three premises:
1. You want to be philanthropic
2. You want your philanthropy to make an impact
3. You have what it takes to be e.g. a Management Consultant
The problem with most Management Consultants is that they aren’t interested in making an impact (hence they make small donations) or in the worst case scenario they don’t even want to be philanthropic! In other words, when I decide that I want there to be a philanthropic purpose in my career, I should not reject a career I will probably be good at if it allows me to make a greater impact than if, say, I chose some other job where I am helping more people directly but I am making less of an impact overall.
That doesn’t mean that philanthropic jobs aren’t good. Imagine (this is hypothetical) I hated heat and I didn’t like hands-on jobs: volunteering in Africa is going to be far less useful than if I’d worked in an office where my skills and interests were at their most fruitful – the money I earned could then pay for volunteers who would do a much better job than me in Africa. I would have had a greater impact that way.
Sorry for the long reply but I find the concept really fascinating! As you say, unfortunately the world rarely works like this since people generally like being VERY rich. It relies on a large proportion of humanity believing that it belongs to a single society (in which everyone has a job they are good at) – charity would be like paying taxes in order to maintain the whole community, with the difference that you’d be feeling better about yourself once you’d paid!