Wednesday 8 May 2013

Career Advice

I'm keeping things simple for today's Blog Every Day in May Challenge. My advice is this:


Figure out what you love and then figure out a way to make money doing it.

It makes me so sad (and annoyed/frustrated) when I hear people (especially people around my age) say things like "I guess I'll do education and be a teacher, I don't know what else to do with an English degree" or "I don't really like engineering, but I'm going to make a lot of money." and the one that makes me cringe the most, "I really wanted to study art, but there's no jobs with that and my parents wouldn't let me, so I'm going to be a nurse because I'll be guaranteed a job out of university." I realize that not everybody knows exactly what they want to do and interests might change along the way. But the reality is that in this day and age your career is a big part of who you are, you're going to be doing it for a while. Why spend all that time doing something you don't like? 

You might not make a ton of money doing what you love (I am pretty confident I will not achieve millionaire status working at camp), but as long as you live within your means (something our society is pretty awful at) why not spend your life doing what you love? There are so many options out there that with a little bit of creative thinking and hard work I truly believe that everybody can find a job that they love.


8 comments:

  1. Good advice! Sometimes it's hard enough going to a job you do like, I'd hate to think what it's be like if I didn't particularly like my job.

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    1. There's always going to be things you don't like in any job, but being able to outweigh the bad with the good makes the bad a whole lot easier to deal with!

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  2. I love this!! So true! I actually switched my major right before graduation from pre-law to teaching when I had a legal assistant job already set and a secure future ahead....but how could that be more interesting than teaching? It can't :) I agree with you 100%!

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    1. I admire people who make the hard choice to switch majors during university! One of my best friends switched 3 times before he found what he loved, he's graduating this year and is so happy he didn't just "stick it out" and wind up in a job he hated.

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  3. Oh my goodness I agree! I know so many people that changed degrees to something "practical" and now that they've been in the job field for a few years are really regretting their decision. I think you're right - happiness is priceless and with a little effort and (perhaps a) tight budget magical things will happen.

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    1. "with a little effort and a tight budget magical things will happen"! I love that! Such a perfect way of putting it! :)

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  4. Thanks for visiting my blog! I love finding out that there are other atlantic Canadians blogging. I've been doing it for years and have only found one other.

    I've gone to school (I let my education go to waste) and I've worked for years but I'm still not 100% what I'd really love to do with my life. I do love working on hotels though, and might just see where this company I'm working for takes me but at the same time I feel like I should be trying to do more, to make more money for my family. We get by easily, but sometimes I wish we could be the kind of parents with big savings, that live in a nice house, and can afford to help our kids pay for college. But oh well. We can afford to eat, and eat good so I can't really complain :)

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    1. My parents weren't able to help my brother or I out with college and honestly it's not something I've thought much about. We always had food on the table, a roof over our head and were able to participate in extra-curricular activities.

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