#jobs #ClimbingLadders #ClimbingCareerLadders #WorkLifeBalance
Most of us grew up thinking we had to have a career.
Start at the bottom, work our way up through the ranks and advance financially along the way.
Author Bruce Feiler, in his book, “The Search: Finding Meaningful Work in a Post-Career World,” turns the notion of a career on its head.
While some people set goals and stick with them, many others revise their passions, change direction and rethink priorities in the middle of “careers,” Feiler says.
People who are the happiest, Feiler says, are those that don’t climb. Instead, they dig, to look for their true selves.
Feiler is right in one sense. Not everyone has to, or wants to, climb career ladders.
And, people often change direction during their working lives, as he points out.
Some of these changes involve personal preference. For example, a person is hired for Job X, but observes someone doing Job Y and decides he or she would like to try that. The person may try Job Y until he or she observes someone doing Job Z, so they try that etc.
However, most changes in jobs, careers and work situations are foisted upon workers.
These changes are happening more frequently as technology and other advances reform workplaces.
These reforms are not always for the better, as far as workers are concerned.
There seems to be a constant desire among employers to want to replace people with machines. After all, machines don’t need benefits, vacations etc. And, they don’t complain.
You can already see more changes coming: driverless vehicles, artificial intelligence etc.
Perhaps at one or more of your academic graduations you heard someone tell you to follow your passion.
You later find that passion doesn’t always make you a living. Being good or knowledgeable at something is marvelous, as long as you realize that it may not help you pay bills.
Therefore, it is incumbent upon each worker to find the good thing(s) about a job, and focus on that (them). As one focuses on the good, always be thinking that all good things will come to an end.
Perhaps what makes a job good, or, at least, tolerable, could disappear suddenly. In fact, the job itself could go away.
Feiler is correct in saying that climbing, or trying to climb, a career ladder doesn’t work for everyone. Sometimes, a ceiling – justified or not – gets in the way. Sometimes, what’s at the top may not turn out to be worth the climb, and one doesn’t find that out until he or she reaches it. And, of course, the higher one climbs, the harder they can fall.
The point here is that lives are made not by happenstance, but by decisions and effort. Wise decisions may not always involve career advancement. It’s OK to decide not to climb. Regardless, whatever path you choose, give it all you have for as long as you are able, or for as long as you are allowed.
Remember, too, that your life outside of work can be more important than the job. Don’t let a job deprive you of that part of your life.
In other words, as Feiler says, it might be better to dig rather than climb. It might be better to be a chipmunk than a squirrel.
Peter