The Truth About That Dream Job
A number of years ago I wrote a post about the fallacy of the “dream job.” I’ve always argued that the hope of getting a job that ticks every box and fulfills your dreams is unrealistic at best and damaging at worst. It’s a fallacy that has kept many young adults stuck in the assumption that they must identify and single-mindedly pursue their “passions” and “dreams” to the detriment of actually getting started in a career. So I was struck to read an opinion piece about how Covid has offered the employed and employable workforce in the US the rare chance to entertain the question of whether it’s possible to work less and, in the case of many, under better conditions.
The pandemic has made a lot of people question the role of work in their lives and work is coming up short. The author of this New York Times piece recognizes that he has his “dream job,” but even while acknowledging his luck, he still contextualizes his job as work, with all its attendant challenges and sacrifices. It’s a great reminder of what work can and can’t do for you and that a job is not actually the fulfillment of a dream.
In light of the pandemic and, dare I say it, the dismantling in this country of some old assumptions about work, I’ve revised this post from 2015.
Do you, or have you ever had, a “dream job?” Do you have any friends, former classmates or colleagues who describe their job as a dream? Do you believe them?
Don’t get me wrong – I love when I see someone fulfilled in their work, successfully using their strengths in an environment where they feel appreciated and fulfilled, while getting paid appropriately to do it. But that’s no dream: behind that deep sense of satisfaction is someone who has ventured down the path of self-discovery, sometimes at real personal cost, and has matched their strengths and most important values with a need they are uniquely suited to fill. With that knowledge in hand, they have exhaustively researched the various roles and reached out to myriad organizations they hope will provide the platform from which they can meet that need. And finally, all that hard work has culminated in their distinguishing themself and being awarded the job they know they want and will do well in.
A “dream job” sounds like a fantasy because it is. It belies the true messiness, the yearning to wander, to kiss a lot of frogs in service to a long-term goal, the serendipitous nature of what it means to author a career. The term seeks to tie all the frayed ends up in a perfect little bow, failing to acknowledge what it means to take your future into your own hands and create it from scratch. It’s a fatuous term that doesn’t belong in the lexicon of career discovery and job search. It’s a fallacy. Don’t let it fool you.
I would add that when you do land a great role at an organization that makes you proud to call it home, like with everything, the honeymoon can only last so long. A job requires work, and sacrifice, and one’s appetite for the hardships associated with doing a great job can wane once those hardships collide too forcefully with other aspects of life.
What’s different about these times is that we’ve all suffered a great deal over the past year and a half, with that suffering, while not equally distributed, causing us to review how we spend the majority of our time with a jaundiced eye. A new calculus has emerged pitting work unfavorably against personal responsibility, family, and meaning, and a lot of people are making changes in their careers that put family and outside pursuits ahead of the daily grind. This may be the moment when your working identity gets reshuffled in service to a more expansive vision of life and that the dream job fantasy dies once and for all.
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