‘Do what you love‘ is an advice that is becoming so popular I can’t even remember what the advice before it was.
‘Do what makes money?’
‘Do what your parents say?’
‘Do what you studied?’
‘Do Law/Engineering/Medicine?’
They all just so out of place and absurd.
Anyway, for a long time now I’ve been thinking of what I’d love to do with my life. I think of the things that I love doing and try to figure out how they can be tweaked into careers that would pay nicely.
This thought pattern is very very flawed and silly to me because:
1. There’s really nothing like ‘what am I going to do with my life’. It is silly because your life began since the day you were born (or born again, however you choose to see it). So, thinking that when you graduate school after 20-something years of your life, then life begins, is about as silly as thinking the ‘future is coming’.
2. Your first priority for choosing a career should not be the pay. I know that this sounds overflogged and at the same time cheesy; like something people say defiantly but disbelieve utterly. But it’s the truth. Having gotten an early entry into the labour market, I realize that this advice easier to say and harder to follow. I have caught myself ruminating over leaving a job I really loved for another which I wasn’t sure was my thing because of the pay. But I have realized that humans are too loyal to their needs whereas their needs don’t do them the same courtesy. We do jobs we cannot stand because our needs tell us that we need enough money to satisfy them, but then we get that pay, we see that our needs will still smirk at us and say: YOU NEED MORE TO SATIFY ME.
Simply put, we can never really satisfy our needs with just money. It’s an illusion we have to radically blink away from our brains.
Hence, we should do jobs that we love because we can actually feed and satisfy passion and fulfil destiny.
I like to think of my own career as an assignment. It changes the way I think about my life. I always try to ask myself: what is my assignment on earth?
That way, if I ever catch myself doing something outside what my assignment is, then it would be easier for me to back out; not minding the fat pay.
How do you know your assignment? Ask God. But it’s mostly evident in the things you love doing; in the things you’re passionate about.
Anyway! The reason for all these philosophizing is that I think I may have discovered another of my assignments.
For a while now, my roommates and I have lived in darkness because the fluorescent bulb in our room burned out. This evening, Sola bought a fluorescent bulb and rushed out for fellowship leaving me with the setting sun and a potential source of light.
I decided to man-up (what’s all the bouncing on the streets for if I can’t) and fix the light situation. I got on the bed closest to fluorescent lamp holder (I think that’s what it’s called) and removed the burned out one.
First feel of excitement!
Then I pulled out the new bulb and fixed it. (Ohh… It felt good to be doing electrical work). Then I switched on the light and… Nah, it was dark.
Disappointed, I squinted at my installation and wondered what could be wrong. I pulled out the bulb and turned it the other way around. Nothing worked. Then I spotted a small blue something under the lamp holder and I turned it. Oh baby! The light came on! And stayed! It stayed!!!
I got down from the bed and just grinned at the thing I had done. I felt happiness, like I haven’t in a while, at my burning white result. I wanted to do it over and over and over and over and again.
And it crossed my mind: what if your assignment in life is to be an electrician???
It surely seemed like an exciting idea. But after a while when I calmed down and thought of it intelligently, I convinced myself that my additional assignment in my life is to impart knowledge and stimulate innate intelligence; to let the light bulb come on in people’s heads.
I’m not even laughing.
I'd love to hear your thoughts!