That's *the* question I am trying to answer right now.
One of the many reasons for this sabbatical I am carelessly taking is that recently I became slightly disillusioned with my job, or more precisely not the job in itself but the way it was turning out. So I thought I should take a step back and think.
Reason why I came to Málaga, which is known in the world to be the preferred dwelling of philosophers and thinkers (J., who visited last week, was highly impressed with our own breed of Russian philosophers).
I ended up in my line of work part by choice and part by chance, which is the only way everything really important is supposed to happen, at least for me. And no one fools me anymore with the talent-only or destiny-only theories. Someone said that success comes when you have the experience to profit of an opportunity that presents itself. Not that I am successful in any standard way, like famous, or award-winning, but I am in general quite satisfied with my accomplishments, which is for me a good measure of personal success.
I felt that if I was not so happy in my job anymore, I should reconsider. And that maybe the path that brought me there, the choice and chance one, should be reviewed, giving more weight to choice. So I am thinking, very intensely, between a first aid course at the
Red Cross and a glass of
Ribera del Duero, excellent red wine to be found at almost every philosophers' gathering around here.
I started exploring the usual
follow-your-passions idea - which would be: reading, traveling and photographing - only to realize that it is just not enough. As it happens, I am highly proficient at reading (I know, not difficult), less so at traveling and very unfortunately not at all at photographing. I don't think I would be able to build a satisfying career around these three passions, but more important, when I was younger and therefore wiser, I decided not to work with, on or around books because it would change into a job and I would loose my greatest passion. One has to always listen to her younger self.
As someone so brilliantly puts it (
part one,
two and
three), the dream job idea is just a trap. Fulfillment comes from a difficult balance of doing what you love and loving what you do. Which means putting hard work and commitment, getting skilled and valuable in the profession, and things will get good. And you will love more and more of what you do. Of course if you hate your job, you will never be happy. But it's a myth to think that you will adore every second even if you truly love what you do. Even the most beautiful job will have dead times, boring situations, frustrating aspects, deceiving moments. Once you recognize that, the question to be asked becomes another, at least for me: do I keep pursuing the same line of work, putting hard work and commitment into it as before, and I will love it again as I used to?
That's where my neuron-scratching brought me for the time being, and with time I will answer to this last question as well, but I wanted to share my musings with all of my 13 readers, and maybe, if you feel so inclined, ask you to tell me what you think.
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