Principles, Parenting & Purpose

Your Career

May 2, 2020

“Today is where your book begins / the rest is still unwritten” — Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten (Official Video) (as featured in Anyone But You)

You don’t need to have a career. A career is something that evolves over time. When you get several decades into your life, hopefully you can look back and see “your career.” But in the 21st century, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to see your career looking ahead.

If you’re passionate about becoming a pilot, a doctor or registered nurse, or a lawyer, your path forward may be clearer than most. These career paths have incredibly steep barriers to entry which help to ensure very high demand and high valuation for the few who succeed on those paths.

But, generally, what you should seek, rather than a career, is Ikigai.

Don’t place all your effort into a single pursuit. Odds are, you don’t know what’s best for you. Try lots of things. Do what you love. Discover what you’re good at. Make sure you do something that people are willing to pay you for. And, keep an eye open for what the world needs and how you want to help.

Ultimately, what you should be seeking in all aspects of your life are pursuits that draw you toward the center of this space. When you’re doing what you love, you’ll spend more time, and you’ll get good at it. If you’re choosing wisely, it’ll be—in sometimes inscrutable ways—what the world needs, and people will pay you for it.

If you’re not getting paid, but you’re hitting two or three of the other areas, then you’ve found a great hobby. Maybe someone will pay you for it some day. In the meantime, get good at doing something people will pay you for!

It’s OK if you don’t love what you’re being paid for. But over time, you should be looking for ways to leverage what you love and what you’re good at into something that pays.

After a decade or two, you may be able to see how what you do lines up with what the world needs. Perhaps it’s just in the lives of the people you’ve affected along the way. Not everyone has to save the world. Sometimes what the world needs is just one person being kind to another. Do that every day, and you can figure the rest out after-the-fact. Same goes for “your career.”