Your Dream Job Is a Farce (and How to Be Happy at Work, Not Constrained)
There is a concept that is being sold and perpetuated as our jobs are increasingly linked to our personal identity: the idea is that work is not so much a means to an end (paying bills, putting food on the table, and financing our lives). ), but rather a way to develop our passions and fulfill our dreams for 40+ hours a week. This phenomenon, which psychologists call “entanglement, ” includes increasingly blurred lines between self, work, and identity.
This concept is underpinned by the idea of a “dream job,” which you can see in lists of dubious predatory jobs, lists and reflections of motivational speakers . The idea is undoubtedly a trap – how can you work, no matter what you do, acquire qualities that don’t feel like work? – but this concept remains a fixation for workers who seek to achieve a certain sense of satisfaction from their careers.
Is there a dream job?
If you are a consultant who promises to help unhappy workers find their ideal calling, then of course the dream job is real. These career coaches and workplace leaders perpetuate an idea because it is lucrative, or at least lucrative enough to keep the dream going, so to speak.
In this ambitious society that honors the leaders of rock stars, it’s no surprise that so many Americans aspire to their dream job in a futile pursuit of something that doesn’t necessarily exist. Of course, such high expectations can lead employees to a dramatic crash when reality hits.
For Sophie Brown, a young journalist interviewed by the BBC in 2018, the idealized version of the work fell short of the long hours and demands of her first big break in the industry.
She told the publication :
I hated my job and hated the people there … Late nights, early mornings and weekends … my partner and I were like sailing ships at night, I hadn’t spent time with my family for years and I realized it was The dream job that I worked on very hard is actually not what I wanted at all.
It is true that you can (and probably should) try to get a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment out of your work. But when you put too much emphasis on becoming your job or getting personal satisfaction from it, you run the risk of facing an existential crisis.
How to be happier at work
Ross McCummon, author of the corporate etiquette guide Working Well with Others , believes that the key to ultimately gaining emotional support in the workplace is to focus less on work and more on personal and professional development. “Should we all strive for a certain area or even a certain position, but a certain job? It seems wrong, ”he says.
He encourages people to have a more realistic understanding of what the workplace is, telling Lifehacker, “Work is the work you do and the people you work with and the culture of the place where you work. Some of this you can find, some you can control, but a lot of it happens naturally. “
A dream can be a motivational tool to help you get on a path you might like, but when realizing a dream or achieving excellence becomes the driving force of a career, “you never get it,” McCammon says.
Instead, focus on the professional and personal improvement you will invariably experience throughout your career, and enjoy those victories.
There are “too many variables” in any career to reflect the subjective perception of the dream. But, as McCummon says, “This is what makes a career so exciting, exciting and rewarding — you can look back and see how you’ve adapted your vision to take advantage of all the opportunities you could never expect.”
Moreover, it is very important to understand that any work suffers from monotony and its own headache. This can be especially discouraging if you do what you love to make a living and find that your ardent passion is now nothing more than a calling riddled with email, Zoom meetings and daily deadlines.
This is not to say that you shouldn’t let your passion dictate your work, but the ability to separate the ongoing work from the human need for self-fulfillment will serve you well throughout your career. You are a person, not your job.