Does anyone have any suggestions for careers or lifestyles where one can feel a sustained sense of satisfaction?
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, different careers provide satisfaction in different ways. Some jobs, such as that of a beautician, provide the satisfaction of a job well done several times a day. Others, such as computer-game programmer, provide that kind of satisfaction several times a decade. Which appeals to you?
What balance of success and failure do you want? There are jobs in which success is achieved only one time in ten tries, yet the psychic payoff from that one success more than makes up for all the failures. Personally, I couldn’t live like that. How about you?
What kinds of social interaction do you want out of your career? There are careers in which you work in almost monastic seclusion and others in which you are in continual interaction with colleagues. How do you feel about interaction with the public as a whole? Repeated contact with complete strangers? Contact restricted to particular age groups or particular social classes? It is up to you.
Are you the kind of person who draws satisfaction out of simply getting the job done, or are you only satisfied when it is done with a certain artistry? Do you want recognition? Do you detest criticism? Would you rather find the cure for disease or cure many patients with various diseases? Prove a theorem or explain a proof? Make a fishing pole, or catch a fish? Or maybe save a species of fish?
The answer to each of these questions may be relevant in making a good career choice. But the trouble is that the typical 20-year-old is completely unequipped to answer them truthfully. Truthful answers to these questions are learned by experience. But the answers that our twenty-year-old actually gives are based on what kind of person he/she wants to be, rather than what kind of person he/she is.
For this reason, I would suggest that every young person take a few years out of the standard educational career track to learn something about his/her self, before committing to a difficult and costly period of training or apprenticeship in some narrow specialty. “Wasting” those years may appear inefficient, but it is far better than wasting a life.
Thank you for your reply. It really highlights the difficulty of making an appropriate choice. There is also the difficulty that a lot of professions require specialised training before they can be experienced.
I did not find any of the careers guidance information at school or university to be particularly helpful. However after working in games for a number of years it was clear that there were a number of types with very similar backgrounds. I think it would be very valuable to read honest autobiographical accounts of different professions and ideally some form of personality assessment that meaningfully matches them. The closest I have found is the book “What type am I?” which guides the reader through a Myers-Briggs personality test and indicates common professions for each type. My current career (academic) was selected from this list and is a much better choice for me.
I find the balance of emphasis in existing research and books disturbing. There is a lot of emphasis on productivity, being a great manager and making lots of money but not so much on finding a good fit for ones personality. Perhaps, there is a need for more scientists and rationalists to focus on these sorts of issues. Issues that directly affect the enjoyment of the majority of peoples lives. Much as how positive psychology has started to redress the fixation on pathology.
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, different careers provide satisfaction in different ways. Some jobs, such as that of a beautician, provide the satisfaction of a job well done several times a day. Others, such as computer-game programmer, provide that kind of satisfaction several times a decade. Which appeals to you?
What balance of success and failure do you want? There are jobs in which success is achieved only one time in ten tries, yet the psychic payoff from that one success more than makes up for all the failures. Personally, I couldn’t live like that. How about you?
What kinds of social interaction do you want out of your career? There are careers in which you work in almost monastic seclusion and others in which you are in continual interaction with colleagues. How do you feel about interaction with the public as a whole? Repeated contact with complete strangers? Contact restricted to particular age groups or particular social classes? It is up to you.
Are you the kind of person who draws satisfaction out of simply getting the job done, or are you only satisfied when it is done with a certain artistry? Do you want recognition? Do you detest criticism? Would you rather find the cure for disease or cure many patients with various diseases? Prove a theorem or explain a proof? Make a fishing pole, or catch a fish? Or maybe save a species of fish?
The answer to each of these questions may be relevant in making a good career choice. But the trouble is that the typical 20-year-old is completely unequipped to answer them truthfully. Truthful answers to these questions are learned by experience. But the answers that our twenty-year-old actually gives are based on what kind of person he/she wants to be, rather than what kind of person he/she is.
For this reason, I would suggest that every young person take a few years out of the standard educational career track to learn something about his/her self, before committing to a difficult and costly period of training or apprenticeship in some narrow specialty. “Wasting” those years may appear inefficient, but it is far better than wasting a life.
Thank you for your reply. It really highlights the difficulty of making an appropriate choice. There is also the difficulty that a lot of professions require specialised training before they can be experienced.
I did not find any of the careers guidance information at school or university to be particularly helpful. However after working in games for a number of years it was clear that there were a number of types with very similar backgrounds. I think it would be very valuable to read honest autobiographical accounts of different professions and ideally some form of personality assessment that meaningfully matches them. The closest I have found is the book “What type am I?” which guides the reader through a Myers-Briggs personality test and indicates common professions for each type. My current career (academic) was selected from this list and is a much better choice for me.
I find the balance of emphasis in existing research and books disturbing. There is a lot of emphasis on productivity, being a great manager and making lots of money but not so much on finding a good fit for ones personality. Perhaps, there is a need for more scientists and rationalists to focus on these sorts of issues. Issues that directly affect the enjoyment of the majority of peoples lives. Much as how positive psychology has started to redress the fixation on pathology.