If you are reading this, I’m sure you’ve felt both externally and internally pulled towards figuring out your career. Work would ultimately take up somewhere between 20% and 60% of one’s meaningful adult time (after subtracting all the necessary hours for life upkeep, such as sleeping and eating) [1]. Moreover, what one works on and where one works will set the mental space for your life beyond the desk. A career is the accumulation and development of work over the years, though it need not to be a linear progress. If anything, your career can be an expanding tree branch, with pivots, backtracks, zero in, expansions. This chapter introduces different ideas and frameworks to think about your career, and will help you reflect on what it means to you to have a meaningful career.
Recommended time: 5 mins Bell Hooks’ All About Love is a manifesto of her ethics of love in life, which also pertains to work. Hooks argues that meaningful work can come from two folds: to choose work that aligns with our right livelihood, and to fully commit to work. She further argues that it is possible (and for her, needed) to work in an environment of love.
Recommended time: 5 mins Cal Newport, computer scientists and writer, argues that following your passion is bad advice for finding work that you love. Instead, look for work that supports autonomy, mastery, and relationships.
Recommended time: 20 mins Benjamin Todd, founder of 80,000 hours, writes on research-based aspects that make a job enjoyable and meaningful. The bottom line: look for 1) work you’re good at; 2) work that helps others; and 3) supportive conditions.
Recommended time: 60 mins Tim Urban digs deep into considering the choice of career as a balancing act of needs and self-understanding. The first half of this blog post discusses how to truly understand your wants and balance your yearnings.
Recommended time: 60 mins The second half of Tim Urban’s blog post on career discusses your career possibilities. For those reading this guide in a cohort, we will have time to fill in your reality box during cohort activity! For solo travelers — this is the unit exercise coming up next. We’ve saved it for next week since this whole article can be >2 hours to do in one sitting, but if you’re into finishing it all at once, go for it!