A job, a career, a hobby, a vocation
They're not all the same. There can be overlap. There are no rules, except the ones you make
As most of us live through the first (and oh gosh, the only one I hopeđ) global pandemic (ugh, Iâve grown so tired of this termđđ) of our lifetimes, work is on all our minds. Itâs been a year (*laughing through tears*đđđ) of adapting to working remotely, in ways we never expected to and for many people, itâs meant changing course entirely, either because of choice or circumstance. During lockdown, there have been so many job losses and layoffs and employees being sent on furlough that new creative ideas for food delivery and online education and more have been born, forcing people to reimagine how they fill their time and how they make money.
This is such a perennial concern, no? How do we fill our time and how do we make money. The first because itâs so deeply tied with feelings of self-worth and how the world views us and the second because itâs essential. Everyoneâs definition of âessentialâ is different. âWhat we doâ is such an important question because itâs intertwined so tightly with âWho we areâ. Even though this isnât true. You are always more than a job title and the salary you make. And as much as some of us would love never to have to think about money, we live in a world which forces us to confront very real money-related necessities like food and rent and clothes. Iâd like to think, âIs your job/business âethicalâ?â has always been a pressing question too. (What counts as âethicalâ can get fuzzyâŠalthough whatâs ârightâ is usually always quite clear.)
Somewhere between what we do and how we make money, weâre expected to find happiness.
Millennials and generations that follow have a few more parts of the puzzle to think about â âDo you love your job?â or do you at least âlikeâ it? These are such loaded questions because if the answer is anything another than an emphatic, enthusiastic âyesâ, what are you doing with your life? Because considering how many hours in a day and how many years you will spend doing this job/work, why would you do anything other than something that truly makes you happy. (These are rhetorical questions, in case that wasnât clear).
And if by this point, youâve managed to answer yes to 1, 2 and 3, thereâs still questions of, âIs what you do good for anyone or anything or is it just about you making money?â and âIs your job interesting and exciting or is it boring and predictable?â
Iâm already exhausted đ© đ
Apart from the food pyramid and Maslowâs hierarchy of needs, this work-worth multi-layered sandwich feels like another mountain to be scaled. Turns out thereâs a term for this: Identity Economics, based on this book by the same name, which sums it up with the line, âhow identity influences the economic choices we make.â
Even if a magical job is all this and more, thereâs still the looming pressure to âstart your own businessâ or have a âside hustle.â Iâve really come to loathe the term. It feels like thereâs no winning. Landing this unicorn job which will make you and everyone important to you happy while still allowing you to earn enough to live how you want to seems like such a tough task, even if you come from massive privilege. In a weird paradox, it seems as though the more privilege you have, the harder this is to achieve.
Which is why, wouldnât it be so deliciously freeing if you knew you didnât have to do it all? That you donât have to hit all these standards, or not all at once, anyway. In fact, itâs more likely and super rare that ANY job will be all of this. Iâm job hunting at the moment but for a long time I wasnât because I told myself precisely this: it needs to be all or nothing. If the job wasnât perfect I wouldnât apply to it and maybe that meant I needed to create the perfect job for myself until which time I wouldnât have the money to live how I wanted to. See why this is a problem?
So Iâm so glad Amira told me about this talk by one of my favourite writers. Elizabeth Gilbert breaks down very succinctly what the difference is between a job, a career, a hobby and a vocation. And guess what? They donât all have to be the same thing! Iâll let you watch the full video because itâs under ten minutes and worth listening to every bit she articulates so nicely. But the message is, you need a job to pay your bills, you can have a career if you want to but donât have to, hobbies are just things you want to do which you donât have to be any good at and certainly not something you need to make money from and a vocation or a calling is work you feel you must do regardless of the outcome.
Thatâs it. Itâs that simple (itâs not really. Itâs a lot of hard work and figuring stuff out but weâll pretend until then). And once you truly understand this, navigating work life becomes so much easier. Letâs also take a moment to register the value of financial independence, particularly for women, which cannot be emphasised enough. Ladies, the sooner we get a handle on our finances, have a clear sense of what our skill set is worth and be unapologetic about demanding a fair price for the work we do for ourselves and other women, we get closer to living on our terms, giving ourselves the freedom to make our own decisions.
One last bit of real talk: you can change your job and your career as many times as you want to. Just because you studied something at college doesnât mean you have to stick with the path those subjects put you on for the rest of your life. You were barely an adult when you had to pick which classes to attend. You donât have to be held ransom to those choices. Imagine if that logic applied to other parts of life. Weâd all be walking around with unfortunate hair and fashion. Weâve left the expectation of sticking to an organisation or field past its expiry long behind. You can have a first, second or third career. You can have two or three careers at the same time (although you might not have much of a lifeđ). Ditto with jobs.
Iâll also take this opportunity to say along with Elizabeth Gilbert, Cheryl Strayed is one of my favourite writers and her book, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar is a huge inspiration to starting this newsletter. Amira suggested I read this and sheâs all about the good ideas. Sheâs also one of my MOST favourite writers who makes me laugh and cry and think. She has her own newsletter and youâll see what I mean.
Please send good vibes that I get hired soon and donât hate it.
If youâre in the market for meaningful work, I hope it finds you and when it does, that youâre able to tell the difference between a job, a career, a hobby and a vocation and know a good opportunity when you see one.
Always sending you good vibes,
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