On jobs

[sylke]

neatorama today posted some notable graduation speakers and included a few snippets from Steve Jobs' speech at Stanford in 2005. The bit that caught my eye:

“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”


I put this next part under a cut because I'm a little self-conscious about just *how* much I love my new career path. I know not everyone has the luxury to keep looking until they find the right job. Family and financial obligations are legitimate barriers to job-hopping. But that above quote really struck home. Many years ago at Pennsic, when talking about my boyfriend at the time, I mentioned I might "settle" for him if I didn't find anyone else. I got a very emphatic response from a campmate: Don't settle. You won't be happy, and you will find the right person, and you will be glad when you do. (Said campmate had been through a divorce and had remarried in her late 40's to a man she obviously felt was not a settlement.) I took that advice, and I married someone else, someone to whom the word "settle" did not apply. I hadn't ever thought to apply that advice to a career, but the sentiments were very similar. Computer science was something I was settling for. Even interaction design felt like I was settling for something. But photography makes me happy and fulfilled in a way that nothing has before. Instead of it feeling like work, I get up early because I want to read the trade magazines, I want to dig into the weekend's shoot to refine the pictures and make them look great for the client, and even the crappy bits like writing contracts and advertising, I feel motivated to do because it's part of the job and I love the job. This is a novel feeling for me, and the relief of having a job I love to do after realizing just how unfulfilling I found my previous work nearly brings me to tears sometimes.

I strongly support the above commencement quote. Don't lose faith. Don't stop looking. Don't settle.

Comments

[jpaulson.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[mdf356.livejournal.com]

It's good to hear you've found something you love.

Does this mean you "wasted" a lot of time at Cornell? :-)

[sylke.livejournal.com]

hehe. :) Nope, Cornell was awesome. Made lots of friends, left there feeling comfortable not only around computers but around computer people, also Chorus was an awesome time for me, both socially and vocally.

I'm not thinking of it as wasted time since I'm still pretty young and I didn't spend all that long in any place I wasn't happy. It's not like I'm 50 and just now discovering the career I love. I still really like going to school, I like the education I have, and I think I'll be able to apply a fair chunk of it through my life. The design stuff will come in handy for album designs, for example. I've always been trying to find what it was I really wanted to do, so I constantly had a "looking for where to go next" outlook. This is just the first time I don't feel like I need to look for where to go next. I'm happy building a career here.

[vetgirlbeth.livejournal.com]

Amen sister! Do what you love!

I had it easy, I knew what I wanted since I was 11 and I was spot on, but it doesn't make it any less of a joy. On my very worst days I dreamily consider my "fallback job" (me and my internmates all came up with ours for when we finally flamed out of our internship) of fabric cutter at Joann's, but even with those occasional burnout days I know I'm doing what I love. I'm glad you have hit your stride and found your match!

[interhawk.livejournal.com]

I'm still looking for that job that pays me lots of money to push a button. Maybe one of these days that boardgame I started to dream up might start looking like a good idea again... Until then, Oracle pays well enough for me to push buttons, it's pushing them in the right order that gets tricky...

[interhawk.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, glad you found yerself a job that gets you out of bed in the morning excited :-)