I think the key element is that you absolutely, as a highest commandment, have to enjoy your work in a fundamental way. This is a combiation of several factors:
1) Finding the subject matter interesting. (Most important question: Would you think about it if nobody paid you?)
2) Feeling capable in the field, so you can enter a kind of good vicious cycle where success breeds more motivation which gives rise to more success.
3) Being in an envrionment where you can exercize creative decision making and see the results in reality. This is a function of the particular job (rather than the field in general), management, responsibility, and similar factors. You may love cooking, but if you're a waiter all your life you will never have the opportunity to experience the field as a decision-maker.
If the answer to #3 is no, you may need a new particular job, though obviously freedom to make this change may vary. (And of course you don't want to bail prematurely on a job whose conditions may improve.)
If the answer to #2 is no, then more education may be the answer. Or maybe moving onto a different field. (Though it is always better to give your own abilities the benefit of the doubt.)
If the answer to #1 is no, then get out of your field and don't look back. No amount of money or concrete success is likely to make you happy. Spend every waking moment figuring out what will give you a "yes" answer to the question in parenthases. Nothing else matters. Money and career success are only meaningful in the context of a yes answer to #1. Without it, they will only provide fleeting or generalized satisfaction. Love is an equally important part of one's life, but it ultimately won't serve unless it goes hand in hand with one's work (be that paid work or something equally demanding like raising a child).
It's important to answer these questions with a kind of ruthless objectivity about your own internal and emotional state based on observations over time. Don't ignore your feelings, but don't give sudden impulses or dissatisfactions sway over your decision-making. Make every emotion prove itself to be important.
If you can get 1-3 in order, or be on the path towards doing so, you will tend to experience your work as a kind of self-justifying satisfaction that needs no further "why"'s or "what now"'s.
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sforzinda
The answers to all your problems, convenient summarized
Date: 2002-05-31 06:39 pm (UTC)1) Finding the subject matter interesting. (Most important question: Would you think about it if nobody paid you?)
2) Feeling capable in the field, so you can enter a kind of good vicious cycle where success breeds more motivation which gives rise to more success.
3) Being in an envrionment where you can exercize creative decision making and see the results in reality. This is a function of the particular job (rather than the field in general), management, responsibility, and similar factors. You may love cooking, but if you're a waiter all your life you will never have the opportunity to experience the field as a decision-maker.
If the answer to #3 is no, you may need a new particular job, though obviously freedom to make this change may vary. (And of course you don't want to bail prematurely on a job whose conditions may improve.)
If the answer to #2 is no, then more education may be the answer. Or maybe moving onto a different field. (Though it is always better to give your own abilities the benefit of the doubt.)
If the answer to #1 is no, then get out of your field and don't look back. No amount of money or concrete success is likely to make you happy. Spend every waking moment figuring out what will give you a "yes" answer to the question in parenthases. Nothing else matters. Money and career success are only meaningful in the context of a yes answer to #1. Without it, they will only provide fleeting or generalized satisfaction. Love is an equally important part of one's life, but it ultimately won't serve unless it goes hand in hand with one's work (be that paid work or something equally demanding like raising a child).
It's important to answer these questions with a kind of ruthless objectivity about your own internal and emotional state based on observations over time. Don't ignore your feelings, but don't give sudden impulses or dissatisfactions sway over your decision-making. Make every emotion prove itself to be important.
If you can get 1-3 in order, or be on the path towards doing so, you will tend to experience your work as a kind of self-justifying satisfaction that needs no further "why"'s or "what now"'s.
Five cents please.