Memories of the 28th Century

Have you ever noticed how many people end up in fields that don’t fit them? It might just be in my limited observations, but it seems like most people are square pegs in round holes, or vice versa. I will admit that there are exceptions, like the woman I know who has been utterly mad about horses for her whole life and is a DVM now, but most people that I know seemed to have missed their true calling, and I include myself.

I will confess that my experience in this matter is fragmentary and incomplete, but I have noticed that it seems like most people end up doing something for which they are not suited. From a psychologist who is completely self-absorbed to musicians who have less sense of rhythm than I have to career counselors who don't even know how hiring is done, people end up trying to make livings in ways that don't match their personalities, knowledge, or style. Oddly, it doesn't seem to necessarily make any difference whether a person gets into something by design or by accident. Most of those people who worked for years to get into some career are as misplaced as everyone else. I have met a few people who seemed to be in the exact place where the belonged, but they are so rare that they stand out sharply in contrast to most people. It seems that many of the people who seem to be well placed spent years doing things that they hated before they managed to claw their ways into something was more fitting.

I don’t know how it is with other people, but I figured out what I would be best at after a couple of decades doing other things, and I have been trying since then to get into my best field. I have noticed many people I know were in similar situations, but many of them had committed more time and money in education and in years in a career, so that they continue without trying to get into something more suitable. I have also known a fair number of people who never got into anything really permanent. Some because they couldn’t, but many, because they felt no commitment to any career, or they were trying to get into something else all the time.

The root of the problem probably is that there are limits on what most people can get into due to the many requirements and pressures brought by family and society. I wonder if there has been any research done regarding this. There are many online tests for “career suitability”. The one I just took was interesting, but it didn’t tell me anything useful. Maybe that’s the problem: the tools for figuring out what one should do are not very good.

There a many online career selection surveys, check off what you like and what you’re good at, and it will give an answer that’s supposed to be what your ideal career would be. The problem with these is that fields are mostly ignored, and the possible responses are rather limited. But they are the sort of thinking that people might do to figure things out for themselves. One thing came to me some decades after I stopped wondering about this problem: Concentrated on what you do well, rather than on what you want to do, because you probably like that more than other things, to the degree where it is part of your nature, while the things that you have to study and work hard at are not part of your nature.

After careful and lengthy deliberation I have finally figured out the ideal line of work for me. I should be a usurper of power in a small country. Either that or a writer, or maybe I should take up making LSD in great quantities; but those would only be appropriate if I can’t get into my true calling: Emperor of the World. Until then I will continue to be a consulting philosopher.

I found a relevant article, but it doesn’t cover all aspects of the problem. There are some people who are not suitable for any careers that are available at present. It has a few things in it that I didn’t think of, like one might hate a career because of who one works for, rather than the work itself. Think of all the people you know who should have careers as hunters or gatherers, or you may know some frustrated torturers (there still are jobs for them but not many), and I have known a few people who should be witches or mages, or some such, and one who still is.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/jo...arch.html?_r=0