This might not be the best community for this, but I don’t know what job I want after high school. I’m afraid of pursuing a job that I’ll end up hating. How do I figure out what job I want when I grow up?
This might not be the best community for this, but I don’t know what job I want after high school. I’m afraid of pursuing a job that I’ll end up hating. How do I figure out what job I want when I grow up?
[cynical rant – take with a bucket of salt]
you don’t
you pick something that you are competent at that pays the bills and keeps you alive and gives you enough free time to work on what you actually want to do
traditional boomer advice was to pick something you love, but after putting in endless hours of doing it over and over just to make enough to keep you fed and provide a place to sleep, you will grow to resent it with a passion – for your own mental health, you absolutely must maintain a separation between the job and your personal life
I’m not sure if this is how you meant it, but I take competent in a bad connotation. I am competent in many skills, but some of them I would despise doing on a daily basis. I would base it on what you’re good at and what you wouldn’t mind doing daily.
You should pick something that pays the bills and gives you free time to do what you want, but it’s good for it to be something you find some enjoyment in. Not necessarily something you love. But something you can get some level of satisfaction from learning and doing.
yea, money is king. the feeling of relief when u find out u can afford ur medical bills by urself.
Yea that seems about right. I wanna find a job that I’ll be content enough with doing for at least 5-10 years, but not necessarily something I love. Something that pays the bills is very important since it’s what you need to survive and I also don’t want to be stuck in a career where I’m struggling to survive or have room for my hobbies and free time.
If you can find something you love that pays okay, though, do that.
The saying that “if you’re doing something you love you’ll never work a single day” is true. I mean you’re still working but it feels way better than doing something just for money.
When you’re just working for money it feels like an imposition and like work is taking you away from life. But when you’re in a job that you love, your whole day feels like part of your life, like you get to enjoy everything.
I’ll keep that in mind, thanks
I’m shocked people seem to agree with this so much. While there are certainly circumstances where you don’t have much choice, spending your life in a job/career that doesn’t give you meaning and fulfillment will probably depress everyone sooner or later.
Nah, it’s much better that way. I go to my job to get money, not to find purpose in life. My boss and employer does not get to dictate my fulfillment.
My job is my job, I use money from my job to go do stuff that has actual meaning to me.
You do you, but it would drain me too much to work a job just for the money if it doesn’t fulfill me in some way directly. I’d compare it to working a shit job your whole life with the goal to finally retire and enjoy life.
Only then, you’re too tired or have health problems, so you can’t enjoy life after all.
Are you working 80+ hours a week or something? If you have zero free time outside of work, I guess there’s no room in your life to find any kind of meaning or purpose outside your job. Then you’re left trying to find meaning in a shit job.
Trying to find a job that is “meaningful” that also pays the bills are few and far between. Most meaningful things in life don’t pay well or at all, or have very few job openings, or are extremely unstable (self employment or startups). Otherwise you’re left with your life “purpose” in a corporation, which only means “make more money”, which is pretty shallow at best.
Work-life balance is important, and I think keeping work and life separate is a huge part of that. Forcibly mixing the two only causes more stress, either from one adding to the other, or from severely limiting your job prospects overall. Making your job = life severely limits both.
Many people don’t find meaning and fulfillment through their jobs, and that’s okay. No one is saying go out and find a job you hate just to pay the bills, but the advice of finding something you love so much that you’ll feel like you’ve never worked a day in your life is inapplicable to most people. If you happen to be one of the few people in the world who love what you do, great. But the reality is that the vast majority of people do not make a career out of their passion, and that’s just fine.
To OP, find a job you don’t mind, one that gives you the right balance of money, time, and fulfillment in your life. Even if that fulfillment comes from things outside of work like hobbies, friends, family, or something else. And remember that the choices you make now are not set in stone. You can always change your mind later if you find you’re not happy.
Yea, I’ll be trying to do that. Find fulfillment from somewhere, whether it be my job, or somewhere else, or a little bit of both both. Thanks.