When You Do What You Love....
My wife and I were having a chat the other day and she was telling me about a conversation she had with our optometrist. They were talking about kids and how kids today have it rougher than we did when we were their age etc ( I disagree with that but that is a whole other discussion/blog post for another time) The conversation was centered around school and trying to figure out what the kids want to do with their lives. You know the proverbial question: What do you want to do when you grow up?
My youngest, who is 17, says she knows what she wants to do with her life and that’s great. I’m very happy about that and happy for her. Then there is my wife, yes, she is working full time but she still says to me all the time “I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up” and she is 47 years old. My oldest is interested in the arts and English but is still unsure of what she wants to do. She is 19 and I tell her there is no huge rush, you will figure it out. Don’t jump into school and do something that doesn’t interest you just for the sake of going to school or because all your friends are going to school.
“They” say kids who are going into the workforce today will change their careers anywhere from 10-15 times in their working lives. That to me is insane! Could you imagine our parents doing even half of that? Back then, they got a job and they stayed there for life. Even if they hated the job, they stayed because they had to. They had families to support. Now I know that the times are very different now, people are having families later in life, if at all. There is much more focus put on ones career as opposed to having a family. It is also said that we spend almost 1/3 of our lives at work or working. When you think about that, it’s absolutely staggering and mind boggling. That is a hell of a lot of time and time is the ONE thing in life we DON’T have control over and can NEVER get back once it’s gone….but I digress.
The conversation then moved towards happiness in life and happiness in our jobs/careers. With keeping all of the aforementioned above in mind, it triggered the real conversation and the true point to all of this: shouldn’t we ALL be doing something as a career choice/job that makes us happy? Isn’t that the point to life, to be happy? Why would you want to spend that much time at a job you fucking hate doing and going into if you have to spend that amount of years/time of your life doing? It just makes sense to me to be doing something you love to do for a living. Now I know it’s not that simple to just find something you love to do and do that to make money and have a great life. Hell it took me over 25 years to finally figure “it” out and actually do something about it. I know we all get into different situations where we are “stuck” doing something we hate for a living and it’s NOT easy to make the changes necessary to start living the life we had envisioned for ourselves but as “they” say, “if you want something bad enough, you will find a way to make it happen” and I whole heartedly do believe it.
When you think about it, it’s such a simple concept, do what makes YOU happy PERIOD! As we all know it’s not that easy to put it into action but believe me and I am speaking from experience, it CAN BE DONE! Are there sacrifices that have to be made? Are there concessions that have to be made? Hell yes there are, of course there are but again as “they” say nothing worth having comes without a fight.
I guess really the whole point of this blog post/conversation is, in today’s day and age, why aren’t more people doing what makes them happy? Life is fleeting, life is short, we ONLY get one go around in this world and with the amount of time we spend at work or working in our lives, why not spend it doing something that you absolutely love to do and be happy doing it! Instead of doing something that you hate doing, at a place you hate, getting up EVERY morning and going to do that? How can we as parents instill this value into our children if we aren’t leading by example and doing the same thing? So get out and DO what you love!