For most of my life, I was convinced I was on the wrong path.
Am I?
I no longer think so. But you see, the problem is that women — and men — of my generation and after (I don’t know before) were raised on the certainty that we must have a career. And careers were to have a certain touch feel. I wasn’t sure exactly how — though briefly I considered that I might achieve this if I owned a chain of magazines, but I was supposed to go to work nine to five at an office with large windows and some kind of assistant that brought me tea. Everything else was, of necessity the wrong career.
Also, though we’d decided we had to stay home and raise the kids because, well, with kids like ours it would be cruel and unusual to throw them at daycare, I felt very guilty I wasn’t bringing in a lot more money. Like for instance at least half what Dan made. Every time we were tight, every time we had to make compromises, every time I couldn’t buy the kids what they needed and had to settle for something not so good, I thought I was in the wrong career.
Worse — did everyone else do this — I decided on what I wanted to be when I was six and frankly knew bloody nothing of the world or what a writing career entailed. From things I had gleaned in books, I thought your agents were kind of like your bosses, and that your editors did their best to keep you publishing. Maybe it was true, at one point, but not when I came in.
My so called career careened from disaster to rescue to fresh disaster, from ridiculous contretemps to people taking a strong dislike to me for reasons I could not figure out. I lived on edge, afraid it would crash at any time, for twenty years. And of course, working even when my mind didn’t. Enjoy what I did? Most of the time I wasn’t sure I could drag myself to the end, and when I did, I had to think of starting the next novel.
It’s hard to feel a lot of joy in your work, or pride in your accomplishments when you’re so burned out that even when you finish a book that you can’t remember what you actually put in it ten minutes after you’re done.
Was all of it a slog? No, but eventually it was. And the more sloggish it became, the more I dreamed of “the career.” Mostly a career in translation — since that was the only real honest employment I had a chance at turning into a career — but it never happened. I almost took a job as a translator in Denver, but we lived in the Springs, and it didn’t pay quite enough to commute that far. It certainly didn’t pay enough for Dan to quit his jobs in the Springs, so I turned it down at the least minute.
By then I was starting to get a feeling THAT career too would be a disappointment. I’d seen Dan go through enough issues in his career. Not as bad as mine, granted, but– And though his career was what he wanted to be, I also knew that like me his satisfaction and joy had shifted to something else: our life together, the children. But of course, the children weren’t a career. It wasn’t what I was raised to expect.
So?
So, I’ve come to realize that most people don’t have careers. They have jobs they do. Some are better suited to their jobs than others, and over time they might come to realize they’re good at what they do and enjoy that fact. But most of of the time people do what they can do, perhaps what they decided to do early on, perhaps what they fell into, and they make enough money for their purposes. And they keep doing it.
Right now everything is embuggered because all our institutions have been infiltrated and destroyed from the inside, our personal relationships have been poisoned by group victimhood to the point that people don’t relate properly, and it is not only marriages that have suffered, but every day life, and so it is only the blessed few whose jobs aren’t cursed with a bit of that insanity and nonsense. Most of my friends have had problems, some worse than my so called career had.
Most people’s happiness lies not in their jobs. That was a lie they told us. Jobs are not “careers” of the glittering kind. Even the kind of Hollywood “careers” that set the idea that a career should be all we ever dreamed of, and make us happy and fulfilled were, it turns out, not that at all, but more akin to the so called career.
Most people’s joy and happiness lie in their marriages, in their children, or failing those, in their parents, their pets, even their hobbies.
People who put their hope of joy and fulfillment in their careers will be disappointed over and over again. Because that’s not what careers or even jobs are for. They are to allow you to survive so you can pursue your happiness. We’re fortunate that jobs today allow us to do that without — in most cases — killing us at forty. And that we have weekends off. And that most of us live long enough to retire.
Because the center of our lives is not work or a career.
And yet, and I can’t explain it, in the last six years I’ve slowly and through some truly horrific events and doubts come to realize that my job is exactly what it should be; that I’m doing exactly what I should be doing; and to derive (almost) as much joy from my writing, both here and in fiction, as I did from raising my kids.
More than that — you have to understand I’m a religious believer, but not a believer in woo woo or fate, so this is weird — I believe I was placed here by a higher power and that I’m doing exactly what I should be doing.
Even though I’m not making nearly that much money. And I certainly am not amazingly famous. And I certainly don’t have any kind of glittering career.
And yet my so called career feels right, and like exactly what I should be doing.
Even trifling, “unimportant” jobs can be what you’re supposed to do. Where you’re supposed to be. And you can derive comfort from that, if not great amounts of money or acclaim or “glittering” career.
And yes, there will be slogs and horrible times. The world is what it is. And I can’t promise you’ll come to the conclusion you are exactly where you’re supposed to be.
On the other hand it is what happened to me.
And yet, through and despite my so called career, my disappointment of it, my hatred of it, my acceptance of it, my love of it (Of course it might be Stockholm syndrome, but I don’t think so.) most of my love, my happiness, my joy was my family.
It still is.
And as a friend reminded me today, the so called career is still alive when it should not be. It should have been dead long ago. After all when I came into the field, the average career was three books. After that no one would publish you. Now it’s only one. If you don’t hit the jackpot out the gate, you’re cooked, at least if you’re with one of the big houses.
And yet, 25 years later, through some improbable saves and some bizarre miracles, the so called career marches on. Maybe that’s why I have the sense I’m doing what I was meant to do.
Or maybe, just maybe I’m that stubborn.
And I have absolutely no idea why I wrote this, or if anyone out there needed to hear it, or even why anyone out there WOULD need to hear such a bizarre tale.
I just felt I should put down these rather unorganized thoughts. Now you deal with it. I do hope someone needed to hear it.
According To Hoyt 
Some of us out here in internet land are glad you have some sort of career doing whatever it is that you do. I look forward to what you are going to write next.
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I’ve come to accept that there’s a reason for most things in life, including the burning desire to let three WIPs lie fallow and instead play with building ai automations with advice from Perplexity.ai…which started and stopped almost EXACTLY one week before Perplexity changed to more restrictive Terms of Service.
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More unorganized thoughts in your general direction:
Notice that the lie of the career does not include self-employment. Those tall-windowed offices are not local trades businesses or artists. The sleek affluence of those images is by definition part of the hive mind of Big Corporate Something. That is not an accident.
The lie of the career is some kind of complementary cousin to the lie of c*vid (“we have to frighten them to get them to do our bidding”) – “we have to entice them wimmins out of the kitchen and into the wage slave world so we can tax them, and keep them dissatisfied chronically-medicated consumers, and abrogate their parental responsibilities or better yet prevent them from having those pesky responsibilities in the first place – so we can rule them all.” And make a wicked fortune off of them.
As a believer, I know that all honest work is worthy of respect – arguably the most important person on an aircraft carrier is not the captain or the pilots or even the flashy aircraft directors, but the ship’s plumber. Nobody dreams of a career in toilets, yet without it … (your imagination is probably sufficient). Much of the morally best work on earth is the various hidden thankless tasks – methinks there will be extra crowns in the next life for those folks.
Anyone going against the wage slave model/lie of the career is pointed toward suffering in this world. I’m glad you persisted, Sarah!
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I had a career goal starting in middle school – university professor of political science. I finally managed to reach that in my (very) late 30s. Lasted about 20 years. Does that make it a career? I dunno. But I do know it was a 60+ hour per week *job* and not the “life of the mind” I was convinced it would be. I’m spending more time working at my “job” now and I’ve never been happier. I still like politics, and still follow what some people would consider to be the more esoteric aspects of European and international politics, but now I do it solely out of interest, and not because I have to publish it and teach it in someone else’s timeframe.
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“good at what they do and enjoy that fact.”
Yes, that is what I have. I have always loved fixing things, even when it was a collection of discarded clocks I turned into three working clocks and two carcasses. (About twelvish?).
I thought it would be nuclear power, not computers and networks, with much adjacent ‘automation’ mechanicals along the way. But the ride has still been MOSTLY a ‘lot of fun’. And met so many great people on the journey, including our fine and intriguing hostess!
And raising kids, who initially took to computing and then went off to cook and build ‘hot rods’ and ended up taking care of the elderly and fixing whatever pays the bills, both in their own unique relationships. They still lean more to the lunatic left than I am happy about, but don’t seem to have totally lost their minds, nor sacrificed their well being to The Narrative. Bringing them up heavily involved in Fandom probably contributed to the last aspect, though they have neither been to a WorldCon on their own. A lot more Anime cons and such. But independent and self sufficient, so I still count that as having been successful on my end.
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Nobody expected anything of me, and I’m a huge egotist, so I just did what I wanted and also did what I needed to get by until I was about 30 and realized I needed to do something to make steady money. God (and my wife) blessed me with a job I loved. (Programming is solving puzzles which has always been fun for me.) As I said on a Discord channel recently, I am, therefore I write.
Our family was only my wife and me (and our cats), so I didn’t feel that pull for soccer games, little league, etc. Somehow Sharon managed nearly 70 years of life with nothing but obstacles and disappointments put in her way. When a door closed, she jumped out a window, and always managed to land on her feet (even if her knee joints took a beating). Never a “success”, but always the best at what she chose to do. My life without her would have been lonely, brutish, and short, but The Big Guy put us together (literally).
I feel for all the boomer women (and beyond until recently) who were propagandized into having careers and ignoring having families or told they had to neglect the ones they had. I don’t know why society can never understand that people are individuals and average is not a procrustean bed that everyone has to be fitted into. Life is what it is, and viva la vida!
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I had two careers, private sector then public sector, and am on to my third. No regrets. I had the great good fortune of being really good at something people would pay good money for. Whilst it had some low moments, it’s mostly been a blast. I’m still fascinated by the markets after 43 years in the profession.
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Writing seems like playing god, and then the details emerge, then the spread sheets, then you have to make them individuals, because personalities are important or something like that. Then you mix in something happening because well that’s life, oh and ya, your muse has input, no they wouldn’t do that because you made them that way dummy and its too late to change the book…@#$%^&**! And why do you do it, because that is your madness and you’re saving someone else from it. And one day some kid is going to pick up your book and it will inspire him to do the impossible, and you’ll never know, but that’s okay. You kept a candle burning for mankind, “Welcome to Mars Mr. Musk”, one day it will happen.
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How interesting. My own personal experience resonates at a distant harmony. More about that at the end. I never was certain what I wanted to do when I grew up. Early on, however, I decided I definitely did not want to go to four years of college and then try to figure out what to do next. Maybe that had to do with seeing protests televised in black and white with Walter Cronkite droning on in the background. Or having first hand experience of rioting black students mobbing public transportation or being carded by the Secret Service because my Dad thought it would be cute to have a picture in front of the White House with me holding a sign “Bridge the Gap in ‘62” with a big smile showing my missing front teeth. He had some ‘spraining to do to my Godfather who was also his boss at NSA at the time…
But mainly I did not want to deal with unknowns. I wanted a course of action mapped out with a bit of job security. (Ha, Ha!)
Being bored in High School because the curriculum was so easy, I took advanced courses and a lot of what they called Independent Study which was “keep these smart kids out of the classroom so they won’t keep showing up the teachers and the other kids.” But most of my partners in crime weren’t inclined to have the career fixation., and from what I know they all did fine.
But the family across the street was headed by a tall chain smoking GP, and he was pretty cool. My Dad worked publishing jobs as editor of various magazines for Doctors. I read them with great interest, and when one article described accelerated programs for pre med/medical in 5 or 6 years instead of 8 (by getting credit for the first two years of med school towards the undergraduate degree) I knew that’s what I wanted.
I applied and was accepted to 4 different programs, but of course took the only 5 year one. Why waste a year, right?
Flash forward to graduation year. I thought I wanted to be a family doc, like the one who lived across the street from me. I applied to all the top programs. They all rejected me because I looked younger than Doogie Houser, and that TV program had not been written yet. Damn ageists.
So I took a residency in internal Medicine. Then, having seen the dark underbelly of primary care in inner city, specialized and took a fellowship.
First job out I got fired for being too independent after first year. So I set up my own practice solo. That specialty practice lasted about 17 years, but I was getting bored, and after another attempt at practicing with other specialists and getting fired again for being too independent, I decided that maybe I should try something else. At this point looking younger than my stated age was a plus, and I joined the military as a flight surgeon.
That was a fun 8 years, but again, my streak of independence was not favored by some, while fortunately favored by a few General Officers, which kept me from getting fired.
Once I got out, I finally got around to practicing Primary Care. I never got fired, but I did quit a few times when my independence was threatened.
I finally found the career I really like the best. I retired. Never made much money compared to my peers. Absolutely no future course is mapped out for me. But great times with family, including a canine or two, and time to troll the internet, putter around the house and grounds, and most of all remain independent.
Maybe I’ll start writing that book someday…
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I didn’t have a career either, just a series of jobs. Mostly in electronics, which I’ve been interested in since before I was 10. Worked my way up from technician to engineer over the course of about 15 years.
Looking back, there were widgets I designed and built, programs I wrote, that never existed before. Engineering is a process of creation, much like art. Although the products have much more practical uses. Engineering, properly applied, makes people’s lives easier and better.
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C4C
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I so relate to the unknown “career”! I studied physics and am A Physicist Who Has Lost The Way. I wound up racing down the computer rathole. Not just software AND hardware design, noo I went to the DARK SIDE, Technical Marketing. It changed my life immeasurably. My wife benefited immensely as well. She got guided tours through ILM, Disney’s Secret Lab, Digital Domain, RFX, got gimmies from the Visual Effects Society, held the Oscar awarded for Independence Day, sat in the Apollo 13 mockup at Digital Domain. I never thought my life would look like this!
More fun than legally allowed.
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By the time I came around, not doing this was a sign you were defective.
If you were up at the old age of like 14 and didn’t have it settled for What Your Career Would Be, you were already set up for utter failure and how dare you?
(Acceptable “what I want to bes,” at that. My sister’s answer of ‘happy’ was right out, as was mine of ‘mom’. Mine was far less likely at that time…. ^.^)
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I’m told that even in first grade I was saying I wanted to write stories. People told me to go into biotech or ecological restoration instead.
Which would have worked better if 1) I could manipulate molecules in 3-D in my head or 2) survive camping out in the woods without Bad Things happening.
As it is I’m doing what keeps a roof over my head while I write. Goal now is to try to write enough that I can reduce the hours of the sucky job and still get by!
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I love animals. Before I was out of grade school, veterinarian was my goal. Until HS. Had a career day at a veterinarian office. That plus requirements, costs, decided would rather have animals than be a veterinarian.
Love the outdoors, so Forestry. Although Ranger might have been a better option given a lot of factors. Oh well. Neither, employment wise, would have been, or was, particularly a wise choice.
What I didn’t think about was ultimately family life, with children. It was never, like now, a “forbidden”/discouraged option. Just did not think about it. Funny thing, not long after we were married, children were suddenly on the list.
Contributing to the family income, even raising children (not our fault there was only a singleton) was also always there. Not from my mom’s example, exactly. Mom did not have monthly income until after dad’s stroke. Even then it was for the insurance. But the examples I followed were my grandmothers. Neither worked outside the home (until maternal grandmother was empty nest). But they earned household money (cough, generally untaxed). Paternal grandmother raised turkeys for local Thanksgiving and Christmas market; plus egg money. She also baked celebration cakes, including her children’s marriage, significant anniversaries, and grandchildren, until she passed. Both knitted, and crocheted. Simple heavy-duty quilts. Etc. After grandpa died, with four children under 18, paternal grandmother opened daycare specializing in overnight (technically 24-hour, given various shifts start and stop).
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I’ve been a golf course groundskeeper, construction/renovation carpenter, dishwasher, bicycle mechanic, delivery driver (long route, 150-250 miles of driving) auto parts outside salesman (many of the same routes I delivered), auto parts warehouse worker, airport FBO lineman, aircraft refueler, satellite tv installer, and over 21 years now, chemical/firefighting foam blender. I guess the chemical work is the closest to a career.
My favorite was the refuleling, and the chemicals before corporate buy-out.
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I haven’t had “careers” (3-5 depending on what is counted)
I have had “careening”. Even the 25 year run in IT has had a bunch of abrupt course changes.
So yes, I am a careenist
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I never had a career. I have always wanted to write. I knew, from everyone (parents, grandparents, friends…) telling me that unless you hit it big, there’s no money in writing. Well. I thought I would do something else and write at night. My first “career” was nursing. I worked in nursing homes full time, and went to school full time, and had no time to write. Then, before I could get my degree, I was diagnosed with lupus. I slept a lot. Still no time to write, between doctors and physical therapy and trying to earn something, I cashiered a lot. Then my PT told me I should try for something less physical than nursing. So I thought about it, and decided to go for meteorology, it was done online, and I hoped to get a job with the National Weather Service. Then they decided that they would only take people who had on-campus degrees. Oh well. So, by length of time in position, I was a cashier/tech for places like Office Depot, Best Buy, etc. I ‘retired’ just short of my 65th birthday, since nobody wanted to hire a 65 year old with heart problems for any job I could do. Now I write full time, and published 4 e-book novels so far on Amazon.
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Our Hostess said
I don’t think it is that strange at all. I wanted to be an astronaut at 6 like the Gemini astronauts. Of course with amblyopia and my good eye clocking in at 20/50 this was NEVER happening in those days. I later figured this out but still loved the stars so decided I wanted to be an astronomer/ This lasted until I met an actual Astronomy professor at Yale through some high school buddies (he was their dad). It became clear this was a VERY hard path as in the early 70’s access to instruments (be they radio, optical or planetary probes) was rare (note this changed in the 80’s and 90’s with Hubble and many LARGE ground based scopes due to computer assistance). Then I started mucking around with the schools TI-59s and later an apple 2. So I ended up a computer scientist. Was it a career? maybe the first half, The work was fun, but the people were better (an odd thought from a dyed in the wool introvert). The camaraderie of getting something done, often against long odds was enjoyable. My wife and I enjoyed each other, but she was a grad student (and then young professor) so worked hard too. Our two daughters in the mid 90s deeply changed those outlooks. Family became more important. Here retired I enjoy just messing about. Yeah it was 40 years of various jobs, was it a carreer? Maybe but I did get to enjoy a lot of things.
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I think of “career” more as past tense. I prefer “vocation” and “advocation”. Career is what I was supposed to determine when I was young enough to be abysmally ignorant. At that time, all I wanted to do was escape the confines of living at home; and deciding I didn’t have any idea what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, I took the first opportunity to leave home and start on my journey in life.
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“For most of my life, I was convinced I was on the wrong path.”
Yes, me too. I’ve been told I was doing it wrong since I was 3. Wrong path, wrong ideas, wrong attitude, wrong wrong wrong.
And I used to believe it, until I discovered, through sheer effort and repetition, that THERE IS NO PATH. There is no right way. Every single way is wrong. No matter where you turn, obstacles.
So I did what I could, and wiggled around the stones everybody threw in my way, and here I am. Retired, health mostly decent, doing alright. Better than some who informed me I was on the wrong path, ad nauseam, my whole life. Despite all.
There’s a certain satisfaction in that, I must say. Try to do what’s right, don’t be an a-hole, don’t be -stupid-, and it’ll probably be okay.
So, you kids, listen to the old man. There is no path. Keep those eyes open, you’ll find a way. Or more likely make one, by force if required.
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I’m feeling this very deeply too. You know some of the “trying to work a Real Job” stuff I’ve dealt with, since we’ve talked about that elsewhere. I’m not sure I even care about a career exactly, but I hate feeling like I take more financial resources than I provide.
And yet, being present for my family is a service with unquantifiable benefits, isn’t it?
We just have to do our best as we go, I think. I’m trying.
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