Finding a good job is hard. Finding one you love can feel harder. At times, finding that ‘dream job’ can feel almost impossible. For many young people, the pressure begins long before they receive their first salary. They are told to choose the right career, follow their passion and find work that gives their life meaning.
Social media makes it look even easier. Someone has found their calling, turned a hobby into a career and appears to be loving every minute of it. But real life is rarely that simple. Sometimes you need a job to pay the bills before it can fulfil your dreams. Sometimes the job you thought you wanted turns out to be exhausting. And sometimes, despite doing everything right, you simply do not know what you want to do with your life.
For years, we have been given the same advice, ‘find a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life’. It does sounds wonderful and it also creates a problem.
The idea of a ‘dream job’ makes people believe that there is one perfect career waiting for them somewhere. Once they find it, everything from money, purpose, identity, happiness and to success will supposedly fall into place.
But what if that job does not exist?
Or what if you find it and realise you do not love it anymore?
The truth is that people change. Their priorities change, their interests change and their responsibilities change. The person who is excited about becoming a journalist, designer, lawyer or entrepreneur at 22 may want something completely different a decade later. That does not mean they failed. It simply means they grew.