"For money you can have everything it is said. No, that is not true. You can buy food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; soft beds, but not sleep; knowledge but not intelligence; glitter, but not comfort; fun, but not pleasure; acquaintances, but not friendship; servants, but not faithfulness; grey hair, but not honor; quiet days, but not peace. The shell of all things you can get for money. But not the kernel. That cannot be had for money." -Arne Garborg, writer (1851-1924)
So in coming across the question asked so many times of me in my youth, “what do you want to be when you grow up” I felt myself having an intellectual revelation. Why have I been striving all my life to be “insert job title here” or even "job title" proceeded by some word alluding to the size of your bank account? Why do I need to have one direction that I will blindly follow for the rest of my life?
Because I was raised to think that was how I made a name for myself in this world. People value money and successful careers. It just so happens that in this society, the bigger the salary the bigger your success in whatever career you choose. So as I get ready to walk down the road to high satisfaction, low pay road of social work I start to wonder what it is that I am doing?
We are trained our whole life to go the direction of ONE vaguely defined career path. Sure, it changes as you age (I would no longer say to my parents that I realistically want to be an ice skater when I grow up) but the concept is the same. Pick one, any one, and in that direction you go. So in saying that I wanted to go to school for psychology that presumably meant when school was over the jobs as a therapist would come rolling in. But that is so far from where I am heading. People look at me funny when I say my next big direction is international adoption because it seems across the pond from my undergraduate degree. The problem is, from getting from BA in psych to MA in social work to employee in intl adopt, I have a few minor (or major, depending on who you talk to) detours to make. Does that mean I am not following my dreams or that I may not end up where I say? Yes and no….
I am open to the idea of planning for now, and maybe for the next step. But if something changes and that next step doesn’t fall in line the way I planned, so what? In making one detour you open up so many other potential paths that you didn’t see coming. So while my next big career move is to go back to school, before I do that I want to travel again. If in traveling my mind changes, then so will my next big step. Does that mean I "fail" if I don't end up in grad school or in international adoption...or that I didn't try hard enough? No. Not in my mind. I think that in being open to whatever comes my way and allowing myself to bend with my experiences I set myself up to have a genuine life satisfaction that I would not find if I had defined my future 5 years ago never strayed.
So the question is, one building or a whole city? ...In picking one thing and grooming yourself for years to work your way up the career ladder you are only constructing one unit, one skyscraper. And while that is enough for some, it isn’t what I want. I find it much for gratifying to build on one unit until I feel it is complete, for now, and then begin working on another. If I come back to refine my first unit later, then so be it. But in doing all of this I will have constructed a beautiful, well rounded city. If that means I am called fickle…aimless… or even something as harsh as unsuccessful, ill take it.
No comments:
Post a Comment