Career
There are two types of careers you should consider. One is to pursue your passion and make that into your job. That’s what I do, and it’s very, very difficult, and you probably will never make much money. The other is to find a job that you don’t hate that leaves you enough time to pursue what you’re passionate about. If you choose this route, figure out exactly what it is that you want to do in pursuing your passion, and make sure that the job you have doesn’t get in the way of that. For example, if you are passionate about playing board games with friends, then you need a job that will leave you enough hours in the day for playing, give you comparable schedules with the people you want to play with, and also pay enough money so that you can afford living expenses.
In both cases you will face compromise. If you choose the latter, no matter what your job is it will be taking away time that you want to be playing games. If you choose the former, you’ll have to find some way to make money playing board games, and that will include doing things that you don’t want to do, like making YouTube videos, filling out paperwork for a game company, going to meetings, etc etc.
The longer you stick with it the closer you will become to actually doing exactly what you want to do. I have been pursuing music as a full-time career for sixteen years now, and every year I spend more and more time doing what I want to do. What I want to do is perform my own music in front of people who want to hear it. When I started out, I was mostly playing in cover bands and doing music that other people wanted me to play. But the more time I put into it, the closer I get towards my goal of traveling the world playing my own music for people interested in hearing my music.
I’ve been tempted many times to change to the second strategy. If I approached my career in the second way, I would find a day job that paid me enough money and left me enough time to pursue my own music in time off. This way wouldn’t be any easier or harder necessarily, but it made less sense than the first way because a day job that would pay me the amount of money I need to live in a house and raise two kids would take too much time away from my music.
As you get older, what you are passionate about may change, so you should always take time to reevaluate your life. For example, maybe you are passionate about playing board games right now, and you choose the second option and work a day job that gives you enough money and time to play board games the way you want to. But one day you may notice that playing board games isn’t fulfilling anymore. Or you may just notice a desire to do something else with your time. Or you may get bored. Or all of the above. When this happens, sit down with a pencil and a sheet of blank paper and start writing down things that you like, things that you might like, and ways that you might want to spend your time. Pick the one that is most appealing to you and try it.
Let’s say you choose something like becoming an environmental activist - an environmentalist ninja. Good choice! You want to be a soldier that uses nonviolent methods to bring down polluting corporate giants. Circle that one on your list, and then write down exactly the kinds of things that you want to do: do you want to sneak into power plants at night and fly a drone with night vision cameras to collect data on an evil polluting power company? Do you want to scuba dive and take underwater pictures of a leaky pipe? Do you want to drive a small boat out to an oil spill and rescue penguins? Do you want to break into a corporate pig farm, uncage all the pigs and let them loose?
Then think of anyone you might know who does these kinds of things. Search online, go to the library, ask your local Riverkeeper. In this example, there are organizations like Greenpeace who do things like that, and probably many more covert organizations who partake in quasi-legal or questionable actions against polluters. If you went a milder, more legal route, Riverkeepers do field work all over the world.
Whatever you can think of that you want to do, there’s somebody doing it, and if not, even better. You get to be a pioneer! Next, you would want to see if you could get a job with one of these organizations or people, or you could just email them and ask if they need a volunteer. Anything that you can do to get your foot in the door and start doing the thing that you want to do. Continue pursuing any passion for years, and you will become a master. People will come to you for expert advice. It is a fulfilling feeling being good at something you love.
It may take years to find the thing that you are most passionate about. You may find one thing you like a lot, and hone in, refine and narrow the scope of your activities until you really dial in the thing that you really love doing. It is a great skill to be able to choose to change what you are doing, abandoning one path for another that may be more fulfilling. The more things you try, the more perspective you will gain on this process, and on yourself.
Don’t get discouraged when things get difficult. If you are pursuing what you love, you are doing the right thing and it’s inevitable that you will go through many rough periods in your career. I’ve had many rough patches in my music career. I almost quit and became a fireman in 2008. The day before I was supposed to go in for my physical exam for the fire department, I got a call from the Embers offering me a job. I might have enjoyed being a fireman, and it might even be very fulfilling work for me, but I would always be lacking something in my life if I gave up my music career.
The other side of that lesson is that if you find that you’re not as passionate about something any more, don’t be scared to quit and do something else. I’ve always been passionate about music, but I question myself almost every day. Is music what I really want to do with my time? The answer is usually yes.
Take it slow. You’ve got the rest of your lives to live, and there’s no rush to figure this all out. Neither of you will be olympic figure skaters - it’s too late for that, go ahead and give up on that dream. You have plenty of time to figure out what you are passionate about and orient your life toward that passion. Take your time and enjoy where you are in this journey presently, just keep facing in the right direction.
