Not for the Money or the Poverty

Should you do what you love or learn to love what you do? Should you follow your heart when making decisions or create a list of pros and cons? Is it true that if you follow your passion you will never work a day in your life?

I have no idea.

Between reading about how colleges these days are failing to produce the workers of the future and pondering what my daughter will do when she graduates in a few weeks, I've been thinking a lot about what career advice I would give my younger self. Despite my ruminations, I really have no idea what career guidance would actually lead to better outcomes (other than the obvious, like "don't show up to work drunk"). 

I sometimes joke that I didn't get into education for the money, but I didn't get into it for the poverty, either. In other words, I am aware that a career in education is not the golden ticket to a lavish lifestyle, and that's OK. At the same time, life costs money. It would be great if people didn't have to worry about money for the kids' college education, or health care costs, or retirement planning, but they do. (And I spent enough years not worrying about those things to realize that you really need to start worrying earlier than I did!)

Perhaps folks just out of college have enough of a buffer to spend a couple of years moving from interesting experience to interesting experience, not worrying too much about establishing a career trajectory or planning for the future. What's five years of waffling around over a 45 year or so working life? Having a variety of experiences might even be a career-enhancing move early on.

That same thinking probably doesn't extend into middle age, however. Both of my brothers found themselves temporarily unemployed in their 40s, and it was not pretty. It is no secret that some large corporations tend to see older workers as an expense rather than asset and may actively seek to get rid of them. 

Someone sent me a notice of an open position recently, and although I'm sure that the content of the work would have been fascinating, it would make absolutely no sense for me to change jobs financially. I've become closer to retirement age than college age, and need to adjust accordingly.

(It also helps that I love my current job.)