Do you often find yourself daydreaming of doing something better? Here’s the thing: Most people should not make their passions their professions. Over at US News, I share three common reasons why people want to pursue their passions, and why those are completely misguided. Read it here.
The American Dream speaks the language of ambition and its tongue whispers it is not for lack of luck, but lack of effort that you are a failure. Put in the work and you’ll become a success. Luck nor social constructs or randomness or the genetic lottery create the richest men of the world – and they are men – but an exchange of value. The rules are: work hard and be rewarded in return. Except we know that’s not true.
“The U.S. has the 4th-highest degree of wealth inequality in the world, trailing only Russia, Ukraine, and Lebanon,” reports former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. “The 400 wealthiest Americans own as much wealth as 80 million families – 62% of America. The reason is the stock market. Since 1980 the American GDP has approximately doubled. Inflation-adjusted wages have gone down. But the stock market has increased by over ten times, and the richest quintile of Americans owns 93% of it.”
This quintile, they don’t work hard – they don’t work at all – and are rewarded in return. They don’t work hard and amass influence. They don’t work hard and acclaim power. They don’t work hard, and yet millions try to emulate them. Those millions do work hard, and in systems and institutions with large trompe l’oeil ceilings of the sky. That is the American Dream. The illusion creates hope. But we no longer have hope.
“More and more I get the sense that we’ve lost it,” argues New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, “and by ‘it’ I mean the optimism that was always the lifeblood of this luminous experiment, the ambition that has been its foundation, the swagger that made us so envied and emulated and reviled.”
We hit the faux-hope ceiling and facing reality has been unseemly ever since. No one likes work. Bosses are crappy. No, really, really bad. Most bully to cover their own insecurities. Workers never feel appreciated. And none of us are really sure what we’re doing matters anyway. Whatever the job, you’re expected to show up and know the job, not learn the job, not make mistakes or take risks.
A mere 13% of workers are engaged. But unlike the days of the company man, where you could put in your time no matter how boring or rote it became, then retire after 30 years with a pension, today’s employers rid themselves of such responsibility. The loss of loyalty not only means the loss of security, but the deep and meaningful work that comes with dedication and duty.
“The world’s leaders have coolly, calmly, rationally, senselessly decided that bankers, CEOs, lobbyists, billionaires, the astrologers formerly known as economists, corporate ‘people’, robots, and hedge funds are worth more to society than… the young. The world’s leaders are letting the future crash and burn,” argues Umair Haque in the Harvard Business Review. Our youth “is getting a deal so raw that no one but a politician or a serial killer could offer it with a straight face. So let’s call it what it is. Not just unfair—but unconscionable.”
In such demanding and depressing times comes innovation, and it tells us to pour our resources and energy into entrepreneurship. Become a freelancer. Work on the side. Explore your “freedom.” And companies love it. Your corporate sovereignty means no salary, no pension, no retirement plan, no healthcare, no 8-hour work day (you willingly work more), no boundaries, no stability, no safety, and no fealty.
And with everyone out for themselves, there is something more immediate lost than the safeguards of our future; we trick ourselves into believing we’re changing the world. No matter the bills aren’t being paid or we can’t get up in the morning or retirement won’t exist when we reach 60, 70 or 80 years old.
We hold onto the idea that “money isn’t meaning,” and that’s a pretty story. It comforts us while we filter photographs or swipe credit cards for a new pair of hiking boots. But the more we encourage such misleading mindsets, the more off-kilter and out-of-balance not only our economy, but our personal lives will become. Money has always been an exchange of value, and it’s only recently that money has been an indicator of meta non-value.
What I mean is the wealthy don’t acquire money through an exchange of value, but an abstraction of money at a higher and higher level. Take a look at Appaloosa, a hedge fund that employs 250 people and Apple, a company that employs about 35,000 people and earned around $6 billion in 2009. “Appaloosa, the hedge fund, earned about as much as Apple in 2009 by speculating on… well, we don’t really know,” argues former Seventh Generation CEO Jeffrey Hollender.
Now tell me our ignorance and unwillingness to fight doesn’t have something to do with the tradeoff between money and meaning. Money isn’t evil. Only the systems we’ve designed and encouraged to make it so. We keep following the rules no one else plays by, but expect the same result. When it doesn’t happen, we create worth and are happy if someone “likes” it on Instagram.
But your value is worth more than that. It’s worth more than massive debt, overwhelming anxiety, being underchallenged, underemployed or unemployed. It’s worth more than what’s in your bank account and it’s certainly worth more than what you’re getting paid (despite any lies the Microsoft CEO will tell you).
Want to fix the economy? What — too big? How about your life? Want a fair shot at the American Dream? Or just a better boss? Or maybe a chance to just give your kids something, if you can’t give them everything? Want to fix the wanting, the feeling, the gnawing? We have to align worth and wealth.
I have a horrible memory, but I remember Ryan asking me to move to DC. Sitting next to each other knee to knee, looking away, biting my inner cheek while he explained why his company needed to relocate. I waited, re-forming his words in my brain while he talked, and then, he wants me to come with him, doesn’t think he can do it without me.
I remember Thank You. Relief. Finally. (And hooray big city!) Thank you for taking me away, letting me play big, taking me with you.
The move, four years ago now, was supposed to be temporary. But it was also supposed to be permanent; you keep up a facade for the sake of transition. Uprooting it all is easier when you think you can come back. I moved to get out of the Midwest where I had lived my entire life, to do the next big thing, and to serve my ambition. Basically, I moved for me. But I also moved for love and for Ryan, more so than I knew at the time.
My job in Madison let me work remotely, which seemed like a good idea then. Who doesn’t want to work from home, especially in a place like DC? I imagined myself traipsing around the city, diving into museums, opening my laptop and leaning back, legs elongated and crossed at the ankles, surveying the people, twirling a pen between my fingers. But I didn’t do those things. And working from home sucked.
I spent most days in a dark apartment we found after viewing twelve places in twelve hours; it was the best out of a dozen, and we signed the lease to have an address for our U-Haul. After we moved in, we realized the windows faced a brick wall. The irony should have alerted me then. In Madison, I thought I was a big fish in a small pond (as much as a young twenty-something could be a big fish). In DC, I wasn’t a small fish in a big pond, it was more like I didn’t exist.
I didn’t get out and meet anyone as I was still tricking myself into thinking we might move back. There was no urgency for me to build a network as I still had my job. And I continued to hold onto the supposed heaven of working from home. Meanwhile, Ryan, whose company situation was precarious before the move (part of the “why” of relocation), was flourishing. You’re not supposed to be jealous of your partner but I was jealous. All of a sudden, everyone knew who he was and all about his company. But no one had heard of the startup I worked for. As time went on, I became increasingly isolated.
Life started to revolve around Ryan in ways I didn’t expect. He passed on speaking engagements he couldn’t or didn’t want to do. Told me about consulting opps from his network. A new job opening from someone he knew. What little career I strung together, I did under his wing. I never imagined myself as the girl who follows her boyfriend across the country, but that’s what I did. I never imagined myself defeated, not knowing what to do next, finding it difficult to get out of the house, intimidated and riddled with anxiety, but that’s what I was.
Sometimes our relationship felt like two bricks tied to my ankles, drowning me in a sea of opportunities. I kept this quiet of course; it wasn’t true, but the weight of my own responsibility was weighted even more with depression. I had the ability to create my future, my present, but chose not to day after day. I oscillated between stuffing down feelings of worthlessness to day-dreaming about starting over on my own alone.
One time I had a job opportunity in New York, something I was really excited about, and got to the final round of interviews. They said I didn’t get the job because the plan to work remotely and travel in between didn’t work. I offered to move to New York temporarily, say for three months, even six, but it didn’t work. And I couldn’t lie and say I would move there for real; we live in DC. And we live here for Ryan’s company.
After, when I told Ryan that I offered to move to New York, he was taken aback. You wouldn’t have really moved, would you? he asked. In my mind: YES. Then I shrugged. Maybe. In my mind: Maybe not.
My choice was largely unconscious over time, but I did prioritize the role of supportive girlfriend, fiancé, and now wife over ambition. And this is what women do. We have careers, we have ambitions, and then love, society, and a lack of vigilance gets in the way.
The ability to have it all, let alone do it all, rests on the supposition that we know what it “all” is, and succeeding in the idea presupposes that we have a choice in the matter, which we often don’t. A modern patriarchy leaves women subtle cues and not-so-subtle mixed messages that layer on top of each other to form a confused haze. We’re left fighting for personal clarity, for the knowledge of what one wants over expectations and transitions, for independence in the midst of love, for careers in the midst of relationships.
I am lucky to have a partner who, when I realized the tiny box I was in and of my own making, allowing myself to be pulled along by the gentle machinations of society, didn’t insist on professions of contentedness or ask, “Why aren’t you/can’t you be happy?” but rather opened up the world and said, this is for you. There is time.
But it’s hard to support your partner and take your own path. Especially when the path isn’t obvious or bumps up against invisible rules or biological clocks (shout-out to love, marriage and the baby carriage!). Unconditional love and support means the ability to fly and be rooted, to gamble and be protected. You get both freedom and security. And while ambition can be amplified in a relationship, a careful watch for its loosening and slipping, then settling, must be kept. Keep a lookout for your mind, worth just as much as his. Vow allegiance to love and independence. Guard your decisions with intention. The world needs the depths and dreams of a woman.
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[audio:https://kontrary.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/dowhatyouwant.mp3|titles=How to Do What You Want In Life]The hardest thing in doing what you want is coming to terms with it. I’ve spent more than ten years doing that, maybe more, maybe since I was a little person? When I was young, my mother gave me a book to record my dreams. I never wrote down the visions that came to me at night, only what I fantasized about during the day. The themes don’t change over time. I’ve known for a long time what I wanted to do.
In many ways, I’ve been doing what I want, and in those positions and side jobs and experiments and activities, I’ve been circling closer and closer, around and around, like a bird goes about it’s prey. But quitting my job was recognition that, all of a sudden, the circle was getting larger, not smaller. I wasn’t closing in on everything I’ve ever wanted, but moving farther away from it. I needed a course correction, and I took it.
Since then, for two months or so, I’ve gone on a life break, a reset if you will. I exercise a lot. I read endlessly on the Internet. I sit on our stoop and people watch. I started drinking light wheat beers. I completed my best run, and then a week later, I did it three days in a row. We went on a vacation to Newport. I had my 30th birthday party, and another celebration for good measure.
I am more at peace, knowing somewhere I already made the decision the moment I quit, and now I am just preparing myself. There’s depression, and then there’s the overwhelming excitement of possibility, where your heart races and there’s nothing you can do to slow down. I’m not sure which I prefer. I try to temper my expectations. Other days, I strike down big goals from my heart. I tackle them in permanent ink.
If you could do anything, what would you do? The responsibility is big. Or so we believe. Most of us can do anything we choose, but we don’t because of perceived limitations. For the past two months or so, I have been stripping those limitations from my view. I have been trying to erase paradigms, or understand them, or feel comfortable wrestling with them because they’ll never go away, not completely.
Like, for example, when people asked what my next step was, and I said “I don’t know.” That’s not a good thing to say unless you want to make people confused and uncomfortable. Or later, when I knew, and I said, “I’m a writer,” the reactions are very different from when I mentioned “I’m in marketing,” or “I work for a startup.” I still do those things. But first and foremost, I’m a writer now.
Mostly I am coming to terms with a different financial reality. Because I want to make money, and I am pursuing what I want in the absence of money. This makes me confused and uncomfortable. But media is an industry in enormous flux, both risky and thrilling, where beloved institutions crumble and new ones are built in just hours. More than anything I want to be in the fray. Writing is a constant sifting and winnowing for the truth. That which allow us to make sense of our lives. And there’s a lot of sense to be made.
I want to build a space for dialogue to engage and challenge our ideas and institutions. I’ll investigate how to find meaning and make money in our work and lives, even as inequality rises to staggering heights and highly educated young people remain jobless or underemployed with debilitating debt, even as we live in a lesser depression, even as partisan politics reaches all-time highs and corporatism sinks to lower lows, even as we struggle with sexism and insidious ignorance, even as we feel the problems piling up around us are too big to solve.
Now is the time where I stop circling and make the dive.
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[audio:https://kontrary.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/PurposePostTake2-copy.mp3|titles=Why Choose Passion and Purpose Over Short-Term Gain?]Money is simply an exchange of value. On the one hand, that phrase allowed me to break past my money barriers a year ago. On the other, it’s complete horseshit.
At one time, money was an exchange of value. But today, when the top 20% of wealthy people hold 80% of the world’s stocks, something is wrong. It means that when companies maximize shareholder profits, they maximize profits for the wealthy and no one else. It means it’s hard to want to lean in or press on in a system like that. And yet, we know or we’ve been told, that financial worth is important. Our measure of worth is often measured in dollars. And Bethany Butzer argues, “if your passion doesn’t lead to a hefty paycheck, it’s viewed as a waste of time.”
Today, we live in a lesser depression, but the actual depression is deep within our minds. Our generation is sick, and overwhelmed with our immense privilege. We can do anything with our lives, and that’s just the issue. This existential crisis – what should we do with our lives? – has not only contributed to the quarter-life crisis phenomenon, but a deep and abiding angst and anxiety now bubbling over the surface.
Most of us sacrifice meaning for paychecks we don’t particularly like. And callings don’t always pay well (contrary to the zealots who argue if you follow your passion, money will follow), so the rest of us sacrifice security for a modicum of self-respect. These aren’t great tradeoffs. Sure, we all hope that at some point the economy will change and worth won’t be measured by the GDP (as Robert F. Kennedy said, “Gross National Product measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”), but in the meantime, we are stuck in between a rock and a hard place.
We optimize our lives for short-term gain, rather than long-term fulfillment. We suffer the “mediocre over the breathtaking,” because real net worth is harder and harder to come by and find. We suffer to keep up. “We’re very busy,” argues economist Umair Haque, “ but we’re not better for it.” Fast is the only speed, because everything is a competition. Beat the other guy and prove your worth. Beat the other guy and have a better life.
The problem is “the problems of youth unemployment, underemployment, marginalization, and inequality are so pervasive globally, more and more economists are beginning to point to a lost generation,” argues Haque. “Our institutions are failing. They’re failing us, failing the challenge of igniting real, lasting human prosperity. If institutions are just instruments to fulfill social contracts, then ours are shattering because the social contracts at their hearts have fractured.”
As a generation, we’re not equipped for such wicked problems. We were trained in schools for corporate factory jobs, not for learning and discovery, not for testing and experimentation. And while almost certainly one-hundred percent of us buy into the idea that knowledge is power, that education is key not only to our own advancement, but the advancement of the human race, almost all of us stop that education after twenty or so years.
No one learns on the job anymore; the word “apprentice,” exists solely as a joke on primetime television. Every young woman wants a mentor, but few find anyone willing. Today’s employer wants the high-performer, fully formed. Companies don’t teach, that’s not the agreement. The agreement is you provide value for salary and benefits. But as people who routinely quit their jobs at Google or Booz Allen in search for something more will tell you, that’s not enough.
Mostly because what companies see as value isn’t connected to any larger sort of purpose or meaning. The purpose is to maximize shareholder profits, in most cases, and most of us intuitively know, even if we don’t study economics and or aren’t aware of the large inequalities of the system, that a purpose based on profits and profits alone is not enough. “Be the best!” is inherently just an axiom of “Beat the other guy.” And beating the other guy has nothing to do with maximizing human potential. It’s just about winning, and winning alone.
While writing Passion & Purpose, author Daniel Gulati says he “met dozens of recent graduates who, rather than applying their newly-acquired knowledge to solve important problems, had prematurely opted to extract value for themselves. Said one young executive: ‘I had big ideas when I started, but now it’s all about getting promoted to partner.’ Said another: ‘I know I’m just pushing paper. But I like getting paid six figures for working nine-to-five and ordering room service at fancy hotels.’”
We optimize for short-term gain, rather than extraordinary, difficult, heart-wrenching change that will solve social problems, impact the planet and advance the human race. “So you made a profit. Yawn,” says Haque. “Did you actually have an impact?”
It was five weeks ago when my boss and I were sitting in a coffee shop and I told him I wanted to transition out of my position. The words kind of slipped out. I was mentally exhausted and tired. While certainly there were parts of my job – and people too – that I enjoyed, there wasn’t a day that passed where I didn’t think, “This isn’t what I want to do.”
Last Friday was my last day of work.
I wasn’t planning to quit, really. It seemed right to suck it up and keep going. It seemed responsible. But I told Ryan constantly that I wanted to leave. Many times I told him this was the day I was going to go in and do the deed. And many times I came home and told him, “Well, it was okay today. It wasn’t so bad.”
The job was a good one and I sort of fell into it, and not at all intentionally. I was making a lot of money consulting. I didn’t particularly enjoy consulting; clients are often just as messy as employers, but the money is better. And that was something. But I also craved the security of a job, or so I thought.
What I really wanted was to opt out.
I wanted permission to get off the career ladder. To step down, instead of up. I wanted to stop competing – with myself, with everyone, with society. I am leaving to do my own thing and to build my own business, but also decidedly to take a break.
Most people don’t have that luxury, I understand. We are bound by lifestyles and responsibilities seemingly outside of our control. And I view this period in my life as a last chance, or rather an opportunity, for that reason. Ryan and I are engaged, and soon we will be married and have kids and a house and many other things that don’t make it impossible, but certainly make it loads more difficult to try something different.
It seems weird that someone who has written about careers, practically her whole life since college, should then decide to opt out of her career. Perhaps those with the highest hopes have the largest illusions. I thought work was going to be great. There’s nothing more that I wanted than to work with a team toward a larger goal. I didn’t expect the constant power struggles. I didn’t expect the lack of meaning. I certainly didn’t expect complete and utter burnout.
Work has largely been a disappointment to entire generations, so I’ll take some comfort that it’s not just me. Seventy-two percent of American workers are either not engaged or are actively disengaged at their jobs, reports the Harvard Business Review. Those that aren’t engaged are “essentially checked out. They’re sleepwalking through their workday putting time – but not energy or passion – into their work.” And those that are actively disengaged are doing what they can to make life hell for everyone else.
The recession particularly screwed Generation Y, and the change we sought in the workplace just didn’t come. An open office isn’t a sign of advancement, for instance – it’s just an employer hopping onto another bandwagon after another. While seventy percent of workers sit in open-office plans, no one really likes it. Workers in open-plan offices get sick more often (due to a lack of privacy and stress), are irritated by noises from conversations and machines, and are less productive due to reduced motivation and decreased job satisfaction.
There is no real thought or inquiry that goes into what composes a great work experience. While I have no desire to sit in a cubicle for eight hours a day, I have even less desire to sit on display in front of twenty other people for eight hours a day.
Frankly, I don’t want to sit for eight hours in any capacity. I want to be outside. I want to lie down at 3 pm and read a book. I want to meditate. I want to go for a run at 10:30 am. I want to build something. I want to meet friends. Since when do we believe that being in one spot for our whole lives is meaningful? The Internet is a poor substitute for life.
I worry about our economy when our brightest minds sit all day. Maybe I am not opting out of my career, but opting out of every convention that we currently impose onto work. I saw Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg speak in Washington, DC and read her bestseller Lean In within just a few hours. Almost every page is marked up. The will to lead is certainly within me, but not like this. Not like it’s been in nearly every job I’ve held since my first paycheck.
While I have quit jobs before, it was always to climb the next rung. This time was an intentional and measured decision about my life, the first of its kind in awhile, and the first of what I hope is many. Too many times I have walked into doors that have been opened for me. Luck, some would say. Although I try not to attribute success to luck; success has come because I work hard, network and connect with the right people, and show up to the communities I’m involved with. In the past five weeks alone, I’ve turned down two jobs. I know how to make money. I know how to have jobs. I can see the path of a successful career ahead of me. But what I want is entirely different.
This time, I want to be present. I expect the rest will come. I don’t expect all roses; I know life is hard. I don’t believe in the pursuit of happiness without the pursuit of sadness. But I won’t be checked out anymore. I refuse to just go through the motions. I choose to lean in – but on my terms.
I think this is what they call, peace.
Never let a lack of experience keep you from great opportunities. Over at US News & World Report, I talk about the five steps you should use if you find yourself desiring a position that feels like a stretch. Read it here.
Likeability is a key factor to workplace success. If personality conflicts occur in the office, productivity slows and targets are missed. Over at US News and World Report today, I talk about five ways to deal with different personality types. Read it here.
While most of us dream about working from home, many who have experience with telecommuting discover it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. And once you start the challenges can start to outweigh the benefits. Over at US News and World Report, I talk about five issues to look out for, and how to mitigate the damage. Read it here.
Gen Y came out of school exploring one job to the next, but when the recession hit, many said the days of job-hopping were over. However, there’s no reason to be scared into longevity at your current position. Over at Brazen Careerist, I explore the ten reasons to keep job-hopping. Read it here.
If you’ve got job-search woes, promotion troubles, or career confusion, grad school is not the answer. Over at US News and World Report today, I talk about the five reasons to skip grad school when you’re at a crossroads, and what you should do instead. Read it here.
When both partners in a relationship work, it can be difficult to balance love with career. Modern romance often means no one is home to make dinner, and quality time can be hard to find. Over at US News and World Report today, I talk about the ten ways to still find success as a couple while pursuing a career. Read it here.