The Stunning Truth about Career Choices

We do get to choose our career path…but only if we are determined enough.

No doubt you have been asked in one way or another the question: “what do you want to be when you grow up”. It’s a well meaning inquiry from the smiling faces of loved ones fired at small children.

Common career choice responses: A fireman, astronaut, ballerina, Miley Cyrus! Oh children… such little fools for having dreams.

As age creeps up however…

it begins to morph into a questions about school, performance, and tests. How are you doing? You getting good grades? Where are you thinking of going to college? What do you plan on studying there?

Common career choice responses: I’m doing fine, school is fine, my grades are fine, I will be graduating in two years, I have to go now.

Finally university age is reached.

With college on the horizon, many teens struggle to hold back from inflicting physical harm onto those “adults” who think they know so much and can’t help but pry into the future career decisions of the youth.

Common career choice responses: I want to be a lawyer, doctor, psychologist, teacher, engineer, accountant (phew that will hold them off for now).

The biggest decision of your life

At the very same time you must decide one of the biggest decisions of your life, that decision must also equally compete for time against sex, drugs, girls, guys, cars, beer, partying, sports, clothes, makeup, celebrity, music and so forth. Guess what wins? If you guessed career choices, guess again.

Distractions as they are, they do serve an insightful and useful purpose when I come to think of it. They allow us to avoid the truth. To avoid the mantra of earning our keep. To avoid what is so eternally and patently clear to each and every one of you reading my words…we are going to have to grow up. We are going to have to make it on our own. We are going to have to do things we don’t want to do. We are going to have to become self sufficient.

So few of us actually choose what we do as a career.

Instead we just stumble in and out of things till we end up in a position where we are comfortable and can afford things like a house, car, and retirement… all while secretly wishing we could go back and do things differently (if given the chance). It is this secret wish that drives us to ask those that are younger: “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Be it consciously or subconsciously we know how big of a decision choosing a career is. We want to impart the wisdom that is gained from age to the youth that is wasted on the young.

We do get to choose, but only if we are determined enough.

Most of us the first time around screw this up. I sincerely believe that most people if given the chance would go back and study something completely different than what they are currently doing. I know, because I am one of them.

My current position in life as an Internet marketer and blogger is completely accidental.

If you had asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up my response would have been blank. All i knew is that I wanted to make enough money to not worry about money and be able to take care of myself and those I love as I was taught too. So it was this over arching mantra, and not the typical “do what makes you happy” that drove my career choices in college.

The dichotomy between east and west is clear with this one. My western readers will say to themselves “of course you should pursue your passions and do a career that makes you happy”. Life is short, unless you are unhappy. Then life is long. But my eastern readers (Saudis, Iranians, Indians, Asians) get where I am coming from. Screw passion, a man need to take care of himself.

In the end, I gave into western ideals because a life of perpetual unhappiness is a life not worth living.

I abandoned my old work to embrace creativity and art. To take control over my life, and to make the decisions myself. A valuable lesson I leaned through this: To abandon work that is comfortable and profitable, but inherently unfulfilling, is to abandon nothing. Not a soul on their death bed will wish “if only I spent more time in the office”. Get your priorities straight. Starting with life purpose and career.

The search for discovering what exactly it is you are going to do for a living is quite scary.

Particularly if you’re still combing the jungle, looking for a way out. It’s easy to just give in and settle for whatever you stumbles into. Much more difficult to keep searching and combing for that way out. For all of us, this search typically begins when we are in our late 20s and early 30s… after we have subscribe to the typical life template for the first quarter century. Only to realize its false nature. Unless of course you were one of those kids who knew right away they wanted to be a teacher, police officer, military member… or a child with a ridiculously obvious talent like Justin Beiber. For everyone else though, we must search, or give in.

As someone who is finding their way out of the jungle and beginning to enter a new paradigm in life, I can give the following advice for discovering your career and passion:

It’s not all about the money. Money and the conspicuous consumption of products should be used as a tool to enhance your life. Not be the sole purpose of it.
The focus should be making money a non issue, not achieving piles of it for a false sense of security, or to impress people you do not care about.
It’s about what you do, not what you have. You take none of with you when you are dead.
Wasting time and money looking for your passion and income is necessary. Everyone does it. I did it. Unless you were born lucky of course, which few if any of us are.
Timing is everything.
It only gets harder with age.
If your current lifestyle is unfulfilling then you know you are doing it wrong.
If you are sitting at a desk everyday at a job you hate in order to protect a life you do not really want…you arent protecting anything.
Life is too short and precious to giving in.
You really know in your heart of hearts what it means to be truly alive.
Live your life for what is important to you.
Do what you absolutely feel compelled to do in life. If your calling is serving your fellow man, do it. Don’t be seduced by the lure of wealth and entrepreneurship if it’s not for you.
Don’t try to be “like” anyone. Be someone others want to be like.
Commit to something and stick with it, unless it’s a failure, then ditch it fast, but no straddling. Commit or don’t commit. Ditch it or don’t ditch it. No half measures.
Asking the question “what do I want to do, what is my purpose” takes a bit of courage. If forces you to look at things with a level of clarity that goes unused through out most of your working life (going through the motions of work to put it another way)
Never feel your behind. If you haven’t given up, you’re not behind. You’re ahead.
It won’t happen over night (mostly). Give yourself a year.
You must hold the intention of what you want and not lose focus. Again, not lose focus. Hold onto that intention. Repeat it. Write it down.
If you had a magic wand, what would you be doing? What would your life be about? The real and honest answer will help guide you.
No one can tell you specifically what to do. Life is a school where you learn lessons. Until you learn one lesson you can not graduate to the next. If you find yourself repeating and staying in the same place it’s for a reason.
Good freakin luck!

There are so many choices. Some small and some very big. The biggest of which is what you do for a living, and also the biggest which most never consciously choose. They just stumble into it. Choice is good, but the drawback of having so many choices is choices take time and effort to consider, to try out, to reject. Often times it ends up becoming another reason to procrastinate from doing the hard work.

It is for this reason why we look upon those who already know their life purpose and passion with a bit of envy and curiosity.

They do the hard work. They make the extra effort. They know where they are going. They commit…and they are rewarded. While the rest of us search in the jungle they are enjoying themselves on the beach. A lot like marriage I would say. If your friends are all getting married and having that aspect of their life locked down you too wish the same. You wish for the search, the endless dating to be over and to find that one person. Same goes with purpose and career choices.

“What should I do with my life” is not just a question, it’s a moral predicament.

It’s how we relate to the rest of the world. How we hold ourselves accountable for our actions. It guides our decisions. Without it we are lost, and looking. The beautiful thing about living in a western economy however is we are allowed the opportunity to be true to our individual nature. It’s not simply about career choices as it is identity, and we don’t have to slug it out forever. The choices in all modern economies are so vast and diverse we can eventually find our place, and we can forgo jobs we hate. Remember: