"If you chose a job doing what you love," Some say, "then nothing bad can come of it. And it is always possible to find someone willing to pay you to do what you love." This idea was brought back to me recently during my trip out to Seattle for Sean's wedding. On our first day there (T Minus 2 Days to Wedding) Sean decided to go sky-diving - a "last gasp of freedom" sort of act, I guess. Something I was precluded from doing by recent back surgery, but I brought along a good book and a camera so that I could record events as they happened. I was stricken by the average age of the folks working at the sky-diving place. Several were VERY young, and a few others were merely pretty young. But amongst the youngsters who could work at a sky-diving place for a sky-diver's salary (I am told a sky-divers salary and a buck can get you a cup of coffee in Seattle... if you don't go to Starbucks) was an older gentleman named "Vlad." I would judge Vlad to be in his mid-to-late thir!
ties, which is well beyond the teenage and twenty-something standard set by the rest of the staff. Ah, he must be the owner or the guy who services the planes, I thought. Someone who is paid better and/or has a more secure position. Nope. He was their lead sky-diving instructor. He was the guy who jumped in tandem with Sean, and who made sure that everything was strapped up right. Turns out that he is just another sky-diver who teaches sky-diving for a living, because it is his passion. Based on what I can tell, he is living on a similar salary to the kids behind the counter. But it was worth it to him to do something he loved.
How does that compare to my life? I am working as a Business Analyst for a small New England bank. This means it is my job to get requirements for new systems stuff from business folk and translate it into language that programmers can understand. (For those under the mistaken impression that programmers mostly speak English, you obviously have never met one.) It involves a lot of analysis, which I love, and a lot of writing, that I love. Yet, regularly I find myself really hating the job. Is that a sign that I should be leaving it? Or it is just a sign that my job is "work" and the reason they call it "work" is because people don't do it for free. (Regardless of the Free Software/Open Source movement.)
And there are plenty of other people like Vlad, who are a lot more successful than being the head instructor at an obscure sky-diving school. Roger Ebert says the same thing, and he is a famous movie critic. So does Steven Spielberg, who is both famous and rich. So do most incredibly successful people. They found something they love ("Follow your bliss," is I think what most of them quote) and made it their vocation. Is this the way to go, or is it the way that only the best of the best can go? Or maybe I should rather say, only the best of the best can pay the costs involved - monetary, security, etc. And of course another cost or at least question is one's relationship with God. Jesus calls us to follow Him, not to "follow your bliss." So is following this kind of philosophy purely self-indulgence, or is it a way of maximizing what God made you to be?
I don't have any answers... or at least not yet. These are hard questions I have been dealing with for a few years now. I am dissatisfied with my life. But is that the natural dissatisfaction of a single guy who wants a family? Is it the natural up and down emotional rollercoaster than is what it means to be human? Is it a sign of the human yearning to know and be more than you are? Or is it a sign that there really is something wrong that I need to correct? Or maybe the something wrong is in me, and not in my job.
I suspect more people out there are feeling the same way, than would be willing to admit in mixed company. Thoughts? Post in comments below. Anonymous posts are fine.
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